Terms of Business

Our staff come to work to care for others, and it is important for all members of the public and our staff to be treated with courtesy and respect.

To ensure this is fully observed, we have a zero tolerance policy. This means that aggressive or violent behaviour towards our staff or any member of the public within our Clinic premises will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Anyone giving verbal abuse to members of staff, either in person or over the telephone, will be sent a letter or receive a call from the Practice Manager advising that this behaviour will not be tolerated. Any future violation of this will result in removal from the Clinic patient list; there will be no appeal process.

We feel sure that you will understand that proper behaviour is absolutely necessary for our staff and patients, and that non-observance will not be accepted. Many thanks for all understanding, Castleton Dental Practice.

Any appointment that is not attended or insufficient notice of cancellation may incur a fee up to a ceiling of £250.

We accept that patients will need to cancel or rearrange appointments for a variety of reasons. If you do need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, please ensure you give us at least 48 hours’ notice for the general dental practitioners and hygiene team or 7 days’ notice for the specialised clinicians, specifically Caoimhe Doherty and Nancy Girgis.

We request a minimum of 7 days’ notice when cancelling or rescheduling appointments with our specialised dentists as these clinicians, with their unique skills and extensive training, often perform complex and time-sensitive procedures that require careful scheduling and the allocation of specialised resources.

We may require the charge to be settled before the appointment can be rebooked.

At our entire discretion we shall retain all or part of any booking fee for the relevant appointment as a charge.

We also reserve the right to refuse to treat patients who continuously cancel at short notice or fail to attend appointments. Members are not excluded from this policy and may be required to make a deposit towards any future consultations.

On occasion it may be necessary for the practice to reschedule your appointments with us. We will always endeavour to provide the greatest amount of notice possible. In order that we might be able to contact you promptly in such circumstances it is important that we hold your contact details including email addresses and mobile / daytime telephone numbers. We also use these details to give adequate reminders of 1 month, 5 days and 48 hours before the appointment.

We welcome feedback on the service we provide and, in particular, want to hear about any problems you may have experienced so that we can deal with them and improve our service in the future. If you have a complaint about any aspect of our service, please speak to a member of our team and we will do our best to address your concerns straight away. If we cannot do so to your satisfaction, you may wish to make a complaint in telephone or writing. To expedite the process, we recommend using the following contact details.

Castleton Dental Practice Ltd

11 Castle Street

Farnham

GU9 7JA
info@castletondental.com
01252 715576

We will aim to acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and to respond fully within 10 working days.

If you are not satisfied with the result of our procedure then a complaint may be made to:

The Dental Complaints Service for complaints about private treatment:

Tel: 08456 120 540

Email: info@dentalcomplaints.org.uk

The General Dental Council, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1M 8DQ (the dentists’ registration body)

Tel: 0845 2224141

Email: standards@gdc-uk.org

The Care Quality Commission at Citygate, Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4PA

Tel: 0300 0616161

Email: enquiries@cqc.org.uk

In all but the simplest forms of treatment you will be presented with a treatment estimate document for your proposed course of treatment.

We will ask you to sign your Treatment Estimate when it is presented to you. This does not commit you to any treatment but is to ensure you understand it and to confirm that the Treatment Estimate has been issued to you. It is also confirming that you agree to abide by our Terms of Business and settle the costs quoted should the treatment proceed. It does not in any way commit you to any costs or require that you under go any treatment.

It is important to understand that the fees quoted are an estimate, and that the final costs of treatment may be higher or lower than the original estimate. We will always keep you informed if costs do change as treatment progresses, asking you how to proceed on these occasions.

This document will normally be presented to you following your examination or treatment planning appointment. A course of treatment cannot begin without a signed treatment estimate in place.

Your clinician will have already discussed the treatment options available, but should you require further explanation or discussion then please do raise your query with the Reception Team who are all registered nurses with the GDC and will be happy to help. If necessary, they will refer to your attending clinician.

For complex treatments you may be presented with supplementary information in addition to your treatment estimate to provide you with further information.

Your Treatment Estimate is valid for 90 days. If you do not proceed with the treatment during this period, or your medical circumstances have changed, a new Treatment Estimate may be required. We may ask you to attend an additional consultation or review with your clinician so that a revised Treatment Estimate can be prepared.

For some complex treatments, you may be provided with additional documents including a treatment report or planning letter, a consent document and/or a payment schedule. Some of these documents may require your signature. These form part of the consent process, and you should ensure that you read them carefully and retain copies for your reference.

We encourage children to register as patients and come in for appointments from the age of two. We encourage infants under that age to attend the practice when their parents are having check-ups in order to get used to the dental environment. We offer a plethora of private dental services and memberships for children and families.
We ask that a parent or legal guardian accompany all patients under the age of 16 for the duration of their appointments. Children under the age of 16 must not be left unattended in any part of our practices.

It is very important that we maintain accurate contact information for you to ensure that we can reach you quickly if there is a problem with your appointments or if we have updates / queries regarding your treatment.

As a minimum we will always ask to record your postal address, email address and a mobile telephone number. In particular, it is our policy to record an email address and mobile telephone number for appointment reminders.

We are obliged to retain all your data in the strictest of confidence and will never share your data with third parties. Data will only be transferred to a third party in extreme safeguarding conditions or with your explicit consent in the context of your dental health or treatment, subject to our obligations under relevant legislation.

We take our duty to maintain the integrity and confidence of your medical records extremely seriously.

We use a number of systems and controls to protect your data including secure computer databases and thorough training in data protection for all of our staff. It is our policy to computerise medical records to the greatest extent possible. Paper records are subject to error or loss, and we therefore avoid the use of paper records wherever possible.

You may be asked to complete forms electronically. This is a requirement of receiving treatment or services from us.

You are entitled to review and to have a copy of the medical records we hold on file for you at any point. If you require a copy of your records or radiographs, we need to have verbal or written consent to be able to email these over to yourself. If you have any questions about your medical records, please do not hesitate to contact one of our reception team.

We provide a number of ways for you to contact us. These include in writing, by email and by telephone.

If you wish to contact us to discuss your medical records, treatment, or personal information by telephone we reserve the right to verify your identity by asking a few straightforward questions.

We will not disclose sensitive medical information by email unless we have your explicit permission to do so. This permission must be given in writing (including by email), in person or by telephone. See DISCUSSING YOUR RECORDS OR TREATMENT WITH OTHERS for more information on who we will discuss your records with.

Please note that all of our telephone calls, both incoming and outgoing, are recorded for the purposes of training and monitoring.

Should we find that an amount is owing to us we will ask that you settle this at the earliest opportunity. We may also decline to provide further treatments or services until the balance is settled. We will try to call patients’ that have any outstanding debt in attempt to achieve fast resolution, we will also send patients with amounts owing a statement by email with a request for payment. We do this on a monthly basis.

We will always take all action available to us to recover amounts owed. If you have any questions about your account, it is important that you contact us as soon as possible.

APPOINTMENT CONFIRMATIONS AND REMINDERS

If you have an email address registered your account with us, you will receive and automic appointment confirmation at the time of booking.

We send an appointment reminder with  medical history forms that need to be completed prior to your appointment. We also carry out a courtesy call 48 hours before your appointment to ensure you have the correct time and that you’re attending.

Please note that you take full responsibility for attending the practice at the correct time and date. Our SHORT TERM CANCELLATIONS & FAILURE TO ATTEND policies apply regardless of whether reminders have been successfully issued or not.

TREATMENT LETTERS AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE

On occasion, we will need to write to you regarding your treatment or dental health. We normally do so by email, unless you specifically request that we do not.

We cannot guarantee that correspondence sent by email is secure. You should ensure that access to your email address is private and that you do not share this email address with other people. We do not recommend the use of a work or corporate email address for this purpose.

PLANNED TREATMENT

To ensure prescribed treatment can be delivered at a time and date that suits you, we ask all patients to book treatment appointments at the time they are prescribed.

For patients who are unable to do so, we will contact you to remind you that planned treatment is outstanding. We do so via a variety of methods.

ROUTINE EXAMINATIONS

To ensure our patients can secure a date and time to suit them, we ask all patients to book any future appointments required at the end of each appointment.

For patients who are unable to do so, we will contact you to remind you that you are due a routine consultation if one is not booked. We do so via a variety of methods.

APPOINTMENT FOLLOW-UP

We may on occasion contact you via telephone following an appointment (also known as a post-op call) to follow-up on the service/treatment you have received. This may be an invitation to complete a survey or simply provide the opportunity to feedback any comments to us.

MARKETING

We produce an email newsletter for our patients on a quarterly basis. We try to include any special or limited time offers in the quarterly newsletters but on occasion we will send out an email specifying our offers.

If you do not wish to receive marketing emails from us, you can opt out by clicking the Unsubscribe link in any marketing email. If you opt out, you will not be contacted for marketing purposes again. Note that you will be ineligible for special offers sent via email.

If you opt out of marketing materials your email address will remain in your medical records for appointment reminders, confirmations, and treatment related correspondence.

We endeavour to provide all registered dental patients with an emergency same day appointment if required. Where there is no duty dentist during working hours we will arrange suitable cover with an alternative practice.

Patients who are marked as inactive are not eligible for emergency same day appointments. A patient becomes inactive through not attending the practice for 3 years.

We understand that many of our patients will want us to speak with their family or friends in relation to their appointments or their treatments. For example, a patient may want us to discuss their appointments with their spouse. However, to protect the confidentiality of our patients we have a strict policy of non-disclosure in place.

Our staff and clinicians will not discuss any aspect of your personal data with anybody except you. Should you wish us to be able to discuss your treatment with other individuals then we will require your written consent to do so. This includes your appointments, your medical records and any other aspect of your relationship with us. In exceptional circumstances, we will accept notice to cancel a single appointment from a member of your family to permit you to cancel an appointment in an emergency.

If you would like us to discuss your treatment with family members then you must record your permission by completing and submitting a Data Disclosure Form, on which you must specify the individuals or organisations you are happy to for us to talk to. You will need to specify what you are happy for us to discuss and whether this permission is indefinite or time-limited. Alternatively, you can provide this authority in writing or by email from the email address we hold on your file.

You can revoke permission given to us at any time by contacting us.

Please note that in limited circumstances we are required by law to disclose your medical records and/or personal information to certain bodies or government organisations. For example, we may be required to disclose certain information to the police in relation to an investigation. These requirements are not subject to your permission and, in many cases, we are not obliged to disclose to you that a request for information has been received and/or fulfilled.

We will of course normally discuss the care of minors with their parents and/or legal guardians.

A patient who is marked as inactive will not be contacted with regard to routine consultations and is not expected to attend the practice on a regular basis. We will mark you as inactive at your request or if you have not attended the practice for a consultation for 3 years.

We do not write to patients to advise them when they have been marked as inactive.

This policy excludes Members, who will remain marked as an active patient so long as their membership remains valid.

Regardless of your status you are very welcome to attend the practice at any time in the future. Please note however that inactive patients may be required to attend a New Patient Consultation – for which our standard charge will be levied – before further treatment can be offered to ensure the correct treatment is prescribed.

We are not registered with any dental or health insurer. As such, we will invoice treatment to patients directly. 

Currently, we do not charge for the filling out of insurance claim forms. 

You can access our Membership Terms using the button below.

Membership

We are always pleased to welcome new patients to Castleton Dental Practice, and we want to ensure that your experience is a pleasant and enjoyable one.

New patients will normally be asked to book an Initial Consultation with one of our dental surgeons. This consultation allows the dental surgeon to perform a thorough review of your teeth, gums and mouth and to have a preliminary conversation with you about your dental health and the appearance of your smile. You will have the opportunity to ask any questions or discuss any problems.

On many occasions your dental surgeon will ask that you have a radiographic assessment (X-ray). This may be a ‘standard’ intra-oral dental x-ray or a panoramic x-ray (OPG). CT-Scans are only available in some practices, and you may be referred to them if required.

You may be asked to consent to an x-ray during the Initial Consultation or afterwards. If an x-ray is required, the process will be explained to you in full. We levy a charge for some types of x-ray to cover the costs of the advanced equipment we use. Any costs due will be explained to you in full before the x-ray is taken.

If as a new patient you are only seeking treatment delivered by a dental hygienist then an Initial Consultation may not be required. We do in any case recommend, for the purposes of maintaining healthy teeth, that all new patients attend an Initial Consultation.

We may charge a deposit or fee in advance for all courses of treatment. See DEPOSITS & PAYMENT TIMINGS for more information.

We accept the following methods of payment: –

– Mastercard and Visa, including credit and debit cards (not Amex)

We take payments for treatment in advance or on the day of treatment.

In addition, we offer interest-free finance for up to 24 months (0% APR Representative) on a variety of treatments. Interest-free finance is not available for all terms for all treatments. Ask a member of our reception team for more information

If you require a refund for any reason, we will issue the refund to the original debit or credit card used to make the payment. We can do this over the phone or if you come into the practice.

Please note refunds can take up to 7 working days to be authorised from when they are first requested. There may be an additional, short delay after approval for the refund to be credited to your account.

We are unable to offer refunds via cash or cheque under any circumstances.

Routine consultations, also known as check-ups or examinations, are vital.

We usually recommend that a patient who is not undergoing a course of treatment invests in their dental health by attending one or two dental consultation and one hygiene consultation per year.

The precise number and pattern of routine consultations will be prescribed by your clinical team and will change over time in reaction to your health and circumstances.

Attending a routine consultation is of course optional. However, we will normally only maintain a patient as active on our records where they are regularly attending appointments (see INACTIVE PATIENTS).

If you choose not to proceed at any stage after treatment has commenced fees for treatment delivered to date will be raised. Any payments on your account will be applied to these fees. Please note that the fees due will reflect the actual treatment delivered and may differ from the timing implied on your Treatment Estimate and/or Payment Schedule.

If funds remain to your credit, they shall be refunded to you. If funds are owing to us, you will be required to settle the amount outstanding upon receipt of an invoice.

Please note that some treatments are non-refundable once you have chosen to proceed.

Many of our patients are referred to us formally by their regular dentist or another medical professional for specific diagnosis, second opinion or treatments. Generally, we accept referrals for advanced diagnostic x-rays, endodontic treatment or dental implants but this list is not exhaustive.

If you are referred to us, you will remain a patient of your regular dentist or medical care provider but you will be subject to our Terms of Business for any treatment delivered by us.

If you have been referred for a course of treatment you will be required to attend a New Patient Consultation. If you have been referred for diagnostic tests only you will not be required to attend a New Patient Consultation but you will be required to complete a medical history form.

You are not obliged to undertake any treatment with us, and we will treat you with the same high level of care and attention that we treat our existing patients.

Once your treatment with us is complete, you will be returned to the care of your regular dentist or medical care provider. You may be invited to attend further appointments with us to specifically review the treatment we have provided, and we recommend that you attend these.

We will do our best not to contact you for marketing purposes at any point.

We will ask to record your medical history at various occasions. This information is vital to ensure that any treatment provided to you is delivered safely, and that we can care for you properly in an emergency. It is a legal requirement that we have an up-to-date medical history on record.

We will ask you to provide us with a medical history at the following points:

– Upon registration with the practice as a new patient

– Where you are about to begin new a course of treatment

– At your annual or regular review with your dentist or hygienist

– Where you change clinician, at the new clinicians request

You should take time to review the form on each occasion and complete it to the best of your knowledge. If you are unsure of any points, ask your clinician.

On occasion we may also ask for additional information, such as medical records from your General Medical Practitioner (GP), copies of prescriptions etc.

The process we use to record your medical history is complete and relevant and ensures that the correct information is stored accurately and safely with the utmost confidence and security. See DATA PROTECTION / GDPR for more information.

We regret that we are unable to treat patients who refuse to complete a medical history form when requested.