Our Policies

Our appointments system is managed to avoid delays in appointment times and minimise loss of surgery time through cancellations and failed appointments.
We manage this by:

• Ensuring that treatment appointments are booked no more than 4 weeks ahead.
• All appointments are confirmed, by call, text or email.
• If we need to change or cancel an appointment, we will give the patient as much notice as possible and explain the reasons.
• When patients cancel an appointment, they are offered another appointment as soon as possible.
• If a patient fails to attend an appointment or cancels less than 24-hours prior to their appointment, there will be a cancellation charge and this amount will vary and is determined on the length of the appointment.
  For patients that have failed to attend on more than one occasion the clinician will review and authorise any more appointments.
• New patients are booked in on the first available appointment slot.
• Patients are offered their next appointment before they leave the practice.

Dental recalls are an essential part of maintaining patients’ oral health and NICE Guidelines recommend that:

• The recommended interval between oral health reviews should be determined specifically for each patient and tailored to meet his or her needs, on the basis of an assessment of disease levels and risk of or from dental disease.
• The interval before the next oral health review should be chosen, either at the end of an oral health review if no further treatment is indicated, or on completion of a specific treatment journey.
• The shortest interval between oral health reviews for all patients should be 3 months. The longest interval between oral health reviews for patients younger than 18 years should be 12 months. The longest interval between oral health reviews for patients aged 18 years and older should be 24 months. For practical reasons, the patient should be assigned a recall interval of 3, 6, 9 or 12 months if he or she is younger than 18 years old, or 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 months if he or she is aged 18 years or older.
• The dentist should discuss the recommended recall interval with the patient and record this interval, and the patient’s agreement or disagreement with it, in the current record-keeping system.
• The recall interval should be reviewed at each examination appointment.

Dental recalls for patients that do not have an appointment booked need to be sent out, either by email or telephone call.

ML 2/4/2024
Review April 2025