Your care

Your medical history is important so we can provide safe treatment for you. Please help us so we can help you by keeping your medical history & medication record up to date.  Details of allergies, bisphosphonate drugs, cancer treatment drugs, anti-blood-clotting drugs, and replacement heart valves are of significant importance for safe dental care for you. Please be assured this is in confidence.

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Our appointment policy

If you cannot make an appointment please contact us and provide as much notice as possible, ideally 24 hours. This is so we can use our time wisely. If you fail to attend your appointment or cancel less than 24 hours on two occasions we may no longer be able to see you and may ask you to find dental care elsewhere. If you fail a treatment appointment we may automatically cancel your next appointment so that further clinical time is not wasted.

 

We will do our best to make appointments to remind you when you are next due however we cannot accept responsibility. It is the patients’ responsibility to book & check their appointments for examinations and treatments.  As long as you maintain your appointments and follow our appointment policy we will do our very best to retain NHS quota (where applicable) to see you.

 

On occasion, we may need to cancel appointments or clinics. We will contact you by telephone, by email, or if time permits by letter.  We try very hard to run to time but dentistry can be complex and we never want to rush any patient's care. Patients appear with something simple which can become complex or with dental emergencies.  If we do run late please accept our apologies. If there is going to be a significant time delay we may reschedule your appointment.

 

Completing your course of treatment

We will keep your course of treatment active for 8 weeks from last seeing you to give you time to make an appointment for your treatment. If you do not book an appointment during that time or you fail to return to the practice / your appointment in that time we may complete and close this course of treatment and ask you to start a new one when you return. This means you may be required to pay the cost again.

 

Our charges & payment for services

The NHS allows us to ask for payment before starting the course of treatment and this is at our discretion. We may not arrange another appointment until treatment is paid for. We accept the following methods of payment at the practice: cash, cheque & all major credit & debit cards.

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Exemptions from payment for NHS charges

Please check you are eligible for free treatment. If you are unsure, the NHS advises you should pay the account and reclaim the money from them. You can find details on the internet and you can download the forms to request free treatment for a refund here

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/check-if-youre-eligible-help  It is the patients’ responsibility to be certain of their exemption if claiming free treatment.

 

Gum health

We are integrating the ‘Healthy Gums Do Matter’ protocol into our working practice which offers encouragement for patients with periodontal disease to look after their gums. We will explain this to you but please ask your dentist or hygienist if you have further questions.

 

Oral health clinics

We provide the ‘Prevention Led Dentistry’ programme from 2020. Some patients will be offered appointments with our nurse led oral health clinics for advice and fluoride application to help improve lifetime oral health.

 

Children & attending with others

We respect that on occasion grandparents or nanny’s bring children to the dentist when parents are working or otherwise committed.  We may ask for you as the legal parent / guardian to provide written permission (we have a form) or in the case of treatments we may need to liaise with you before we can go ahead.  Please understand that this is for safe dental care for you and for us.

 

Our service standards

If you have attended within the last two years and are not in breach of our appointment policy we will offer you:

• An examination appointment within 2 months if we have capacity available. At the moment, due to Covid we are unable to offer this and we may need to postpone new examination appointments until prescribed treatments or waiting lists for treatment have been reduced if they are beyond a certain level.

• An urgent appointment by the end of the next working day.

• A denture repair within 5 working days where possible (dependent upon our contracted laboratories being open and available).

• A treatment appointment within 12 weeks.

• All patients are welcome to join our cancellation list where we can contact you if space becomes available earlier. We may prioritise patients from this list according to dental need.

• Waiting times for dentists may vary therefore you may be offered an appointment with an alternative dentist to meet these target times.

• The practice reserves the right to amend these times if staffing is short, if treatment needs are high or if there is a contingency plan in place.

• Sometimes patients arrive with severe pain or complications. We will never rush treatment and we never want to compromise patient care and on occasion this can make us run late. We understand that you may have other commitments and we may offer that we rebook your appointment for you.

• Treatment plan estimates are available. If you would like further copies of your treatment plan please ask and we will provide them for you.

 

How often should you be seen?

NICE identifies how often you should be seen for your recall appointment. Your dentist will carry out a risk assessment and make a recommendation as to when, approximately you should be seen.

 

Our referral partners

We may refer you to a specialist or a centre with additional facilities for further care or advanced care. This requires us to share information about you with them so that they can assess & see you.

 

When we make a referral we will advise you who we have referred you to. We suggest that if you have not heard from them within four weeks (two weeks for urgent cancer referrals) that you make contact with them to check on the progress of your referral.

 

The guidelines for NHS referrals and certain conditions have to fit criteria to be allowed to be referred e.g. extraction of wisdom teeth, sedation or orthodontics. If you are eligible for an NHS referral we will be happy to arrange this for you but please understand that the NHS define the criteria and not us. Waiting times also vary for NHS referrals which again are outside of our control. If we are suspicious of cancer we can fast track a referral but we are limited from ‘fast tracking’ for other reasons.

 

We have trusted partners whom we refer to for our private specialist or advanced private care such as complicated root canal or implants. Please ask and we will be happy to discuss who we believe may be the best clinician for you to see.

 

Foundation dentist and dental nurse training

We are an approved practice for the training of newly qualified, registered dental surgeons, dental hygiene therapists and we also train student dental nurses.  Some of our dental surgeons hold post graduate certificates in medical education. We invest in training for our student dental nurses.

 

All of our dentists and nurses when qualified are registered with the General Dental Council and undertake rigorous CPD. This helps them to stay up to date with their knowledge and care for you.

 

Patient feedback

We welcome compliments, comments and complaints as we can learn from them.  Compliments really help our team and suggestions for improvements do too.  We have a compliments book available and a patient feedback box and we also keep the many cards from you. If you would like to speak to your dentist you are welcome or you can contact our practice manager. If something has not gone to plan or you have not been happy with our service we will do our very best to learn and respond in a caring and sensitive way.  A copy of our complaints procedure is attached at the bottom of this page for you.

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Confidentiality & your data

So we can contact you about appointments and ensure any referral for you is correct please update your contact details at reception whenever you attend.

 

Our privacy notice is available for you.   If you would like a paper copy to take away, please ask at reception & we will be happy to provide one. This tells you how we keep your data safe, who we may share it with and what you need to do if you wish to request a copy of your records.   A copy is available as a pdf document at the bottom of this page for you.

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Confidentiality is respected for you. If you have any questions please contact our Practice Manager who will be happy to help.  Our Data Protection Officer is Mrs Alice Ashby.

 

Which dentist?

We aim to ensure you are cared for by your preferred dentist. Please let our receptionists know when you book your next appointment. Where this is not possible, we will explain the reasons.  You are welcome to contact the practice before your appointment to see which clinician you will be seeing. At the moment a number of our clinicians are beyond capacity so may be unable to see you.

 

Looking after our patients & our staff

We value our patients and we value our staff. If on occasion we feel that the behaviour of a patient is violent or abusive we may have to refuse treatment to them but we hope this never happens. We do have a zero tolerance policy in place for our staff & our patients.

 

Key practice policies

• Infection control policy

• Confidentiality policy

• Complaints policy

• Privacy notice for patients

• Zero Tolerance

 

Safeguarding

We have safeguarding policies and procedures in place and we view safeguarding as an important role in our practice.

Any safeguarding concerns will be overseen by Kirsty Loynes, Donna Ashby or Dr Roger Bromiley.                                          

Services

NHS services are commissioned by NHS England: North Yorkshire & Humber Area Team, NHS England, Unit 3, Alpha Court, Monks Cross, York, Y032 9WN Tel: 01138251905.   Denplan Simply Health can be contacted on 0800 401 402.

 

The Care Quality Commission CQC can be contacted CQC National Customer Service Centre, Citygate, Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4PA Tel: 03000 616161

The General Dental Council can be contacted 37 Wimpole St, Marylebone, London W1G 8DQ Tel: 020 7167 6000

 

If there is anything else we can help with, please ask & thank you for asking us to look after your dental care.

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The Beech House Dental Team

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* our Complaints Policy & Data Protection Privacy notice

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