Complaints Policy

At Woodlands Orthodontics our aim is to provide you with the highest quality treatment and excellent customer service. Please talk to us if you have any problems with our practice or a member of our team, and we will do our best to sort it out for you. If you feel that you have good reason to make a formal complaint, we will deal with it using nationally recognised principles of best practice for handling complaints and feedback. Our Complaints Handling Policy is on display at the practice.

We want to hear your views in order to help us improve – please let us know when we get it right as well as when we could do better. If you have an idea about how we could improve your experience of Woodlands Orthodontics, please get in touch via email, phone or in person and let us know.

If you need to make a complaint, we want you to feel supported and listened to. We will keep you informed of the steps we are taking and will do our best answer any questions you have. Our complaints-handling procedure aims to keep you informed of the action we are taking.

When dealing with complaints we follow a set of principles put together by the General Dental Council (GDC) with 28 organisations from across the dental sector. These principles set out what you can expect from us if you would like to provide feedback or raise a concern:

All your feedback is important to us

  • All feedback is welcomed, such as what we did well, what we could do better, or any other feedback
  • We will use your feedback to help us improve, and we will show you what we have learned
  • You can use our complaints procedure to provide feedback. If you don’t want to do this, speak to a member of staff

We want to make it easy for you to raise a concern or complain

  • Information about our complaints procedure is easy to find, without you having to ask
  • You can write to us or tell us in person
  • We will take your complaint seriously
  • Our complaints information also tells you how to raise a complaint about us with another organisation

We follow a complaints procedure and keep you informed

  • We will tell you who is dealing with your complaint and when to expect a response
  • We will keep you informed of the progress of your complaint, including information on any delays
  • You should feel confident that we are following our complaints procedure

We will try to answer all your questions and respond to any concerns you raise

  • It should be clear to you what happened, and why
  • Our response should be empathetic in tone and coordinated
  • We will deal with your complaint in the time we said we would

We want you to have a positive experience of making a complaint

  • You should feel we have followed a clear procedure in the time we said we would
  • You should not be treated differently if you complain
  • You understand how the outcome of your complaint was reached
  • You feel you could raise a complaint again if needed, and could recommend our procedure to others
  • You feel we have listened to you and have acted in a fair way
  • You know what further help is available if you are unhappy with the way we have handled your complaint

Your feedback helps us to improve our service

  • We are learning all the time from your feedback
  • We show you how your feedback is listened to and acted upon
  • All members of our team are committed to improving the service we provide

Fiona Millen

Dr Fiona Millen BDS (Brist), MSc (Lond), FDSRCS (Eng), MOrthRCS (Eng)
Practice Principal, Woodlands Orthodontics