We aim to provide all of our patients with the best possible service and to achieve this we need your co-operation. If you are unable to keep your appointment, please make every effort to cancel it well in advance so that it may be offered to someone else. Non-attendance and cancellations at short notice without a valid reason deprives other patients of essential dental services.
A common reason for Dentists running late is that some patients do not attend on time. Please note, you may not be seen if you are late for your appointment. If you are late for your appointment you may have to wait until the end of surgery to be seen. This is to ensure we run our appointments on time.
The first time an NHS patient fails to attend a booked appointment we will send them an FTA (failed to attend) letter reminding them that in future they must cancel appointments if they are unable to attend. After two failures to attend we will advise you to register with another surgery and remove you from our register. To avoid being sent an FTA letter please ensure that you cancel your appointment a minimum 48 hours before the appointment time. Anything cancelled after this time could count as an FTA.
Failure to attend your appointments could mean refusal of treatment by your dentist, and you may lose your place on our register & incur charges. The current charge for private patients is £1 per 1 minute of the booked appointment to cover the loss of surgery time. Please give a minimum of 48 hours’ notice should you not be able to attend any of your appointments. For Dental Implants, Sedation and long appointment cancellation, the patient will lose their deposit if 1 weeks’ notice is not given to cancel or re-arrange.
Only in very exceptional circumstance do the above rules not apply, but this is at the discretion of the treating Dentist, Area Manager, Practice Manager and Head Receptionist. This is to ensure fairness to our patients & staff.
Thank you,
Synergy Dental Group
Working Together for Better Results