Policies

Complaints Procedure

At Porthcawl Dental Practice, we take complaints very seriously and strive to ensure that all of our patients are satisfied with their experience of our service. If you wish to raise a complaint with the practice, we are committed to the following Complaints Procedure:

• If you wish to make a complaint, please ask our receptionist, who will refer you to the dentist most closely involved with your reason for complaint.
• If you do not wish to speak to this person, let us know and we will arrange for you to discuss the matter with another member of the team.
• If your dentist or the nominated person is not available at the time, then an appointment will be made during which you can discuss your concerns. The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on. If we cannot arrange this within a reasonable period, or if you do not wish to wait to discuss the matter, arrangements will be made for someone else to address your concerns.
• If you do not wish to discuss the matter with your dentist or other representative, please write with your concerns to:
  Bharat Nagrani or Eifion Roberts
  Porthcawl Dental Practice
  1 Porthcawl Court
  Dinas Powis
  CF64 4NS

• We will acknowledge your complaint in writing as soon as possible, normally within two working days. We will seek to investigate the complaint within 10 working days of the complaint being received to give an explanation of the circumstances that led to the complaint. If you do not wish to meet us, then we will attempt to talk to you on the telephone. If we are unable to investigate the complaint within 10 working days, we will notify you, giving reasons for the delay and the likely period within which the investigation will be completed.
• We will confirm the decision about the complaint in writing to you immediately after completing our investigation.
• If you wish to take your complaint further regarding your private treatment, please contact the Dental Complaints Service (run by the General Dental Council) at 08456 120 540 or complete the complaints form on their website or Health Inspectorate Wales 029 20928850 (www.hiw.org.uk).
• If you wish to take your complaint further regarding your NHS treatment, please contact Cardiff and the Vale UHB at 029 20747747 or through their website; or contact NHS Direct Wales at 0845 46 47.

Cookie Policy

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However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.

Cookies
“Cookies” are used in some areas to make our website user-friendly and to customise it to fit your needs in an optimal way. “Cookies” are small text files stored locally on the hard drive of your computer. They are there to keep available information for retrieval at a later time in order to facilitate the use of our online services. When your visit is over and you close the browser you were using cookies are deleted automatically.

Web Tracking
When using our website, we also use cookies to allow for the analysis of your use of the website (web tracking). The information generated by the cookies about your use of our website (search engines used, search terms used, languages used, visitors origins by country, browser and plugins used, the referrer, the length of stay, entry and exit pages, cancellation rates and IP address) is anonymous and used solely for statistical purposes. This information is used separately from Personal Data. The two sets of data are not merged; therefore, they are not indicative of Personal Data and one cannot generate any such conclusions therefrom.

Google Analytics
This website uses Google Analytics, a Google Inc. (“Google”) provided web analysis service. Google Analytics uses “cookies” – small text files stored on your hard drive to enable an analysis of your use of the website. Cookies-generated information concerning your use of the website is transmitted to and stored on one of Google’s servers in the US.

However, by activation of the IP anonymisation on this website your IP address will be abbreviated beforehand by Google within Member States of the European Union or other parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases is the complete IP address transmitted to a Google server in the US and abbreviated there.

On behalf of this website’s operator, Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website, compiling website activity reports and providing the website’s operator with further website and Internet related services. The abbreviated IP address transmitted in the context of Google Analytics by your browser is not associated with any other data held by Google.

You may prevent the storage of cookies by adjusting your browser’s software settings; in this case however, we must point out that you might not be able to access the full extent of all of the website’s features.

Additionally you can prevent the cookie-generated data concerning your use of the website (including your abbreviated IP address) from being transferred and processed by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available under the following link.

Approval or Rejection of Cookies
You can approve or reject the use of cookies – also for web tracking – through the settings of your web browser. You can set your browser so that it either notifies you when cookies are being enabled or reject cookies altogether. However, when you reject cookies you cannot use all the features of our website. The following links allow you to inquire about this possibility for the most popular browsers:

Internet Explorer
Firefox
Google Chrome
Safari
Opera

Cancellation Policy

It is the aim of this practice to provide quality dental care to our patients on schedule and to use clinical time effectively. To achieve this aim we have an appointment cancellation policy.

Cancellation of an appointment
Patients are requested to give at least 24 hours notice to cancel a dental appointment. Cancellations should be made by telephone on: 02902512646.

If a private dental appointment is missed or cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, a £50 deposit will be taken before re-booking the appointment. The deposit will then be either used towards the next appointment, refunded if it is a non-chargeable appointment or lost if that next appointment is also missed or cancelled late. The fee is based on the length of the appointment.

If more than two NHS dental appointments are missed or cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, we do not guarantee being able to complete a patient’s NHS treatment or offer them NHS treatment in the future.

It is our aim to telephone or write to patients after a missed appointment to understand the reason for non-attendance and to inform them about any decision about their NHS dental care.

Any appeals about missed or cancelled appointment decisions by a patient should be made in writing to the practice owners Dr Bharat Nagrani or Dr Robert Eifion Roberts.

Reviewed on: 19/12/17
Reviewed by: Bharat Nagrani
Detail of changes: Who to appeal to in writing if appointments missed
Staff notified of changes: 19/12/17

General Disclaimer

The information provided on this Web site is for general informational and educational purposes only. Please read and review these Terms of Use carefully before accessing or using this website. By accessing or using this website, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and agree to this Terms of Use Agreement. If you do not agree to the Terms of Use, you may not access or use the site.

Terms of use
We cannot make any representations, warranties, or assurances as to the availability, accuracy, or completeness of this website, its information or its contents. We shall not be liable for any damages or injury resulting from your access to, or inability to access, this website, or from your use of, or reliance on, this website or any information provided at this Web site.

This website may provide links or references to other sites and may be accessed by links from third party websites over which we have no control. We have no responsibility for the content of such other sites and shall not be liable for any damages or injury arising from that content or that access. Any links to other sites are provided as merely a convenience to the users of this website. We reserve the right to delete, modify or supplement the content, links or references of this site at any time, for any reason, without notification.

Privacy Policy

Our Data Protection Principles
The protection and security of your personal data is of paramount importance to us. The use of your personal data is in strict compliance with general data protection regulations in order to make you feel secure with us in matters of data protection.

It is important to us that you are always aware of which personal data is collected during your visit on our website and during the use of our services and offers, as well as how we use said data afterwards. The following notices are intended to provide you with information about this and also to inform you of how we protect your personal data from manipulation, loss, destruction or improper use.

Collection and Use of Personal Data
Personal data is any data that allows for your personal identification, i.e. your name, address, phone number or email address (“Personal Data”). Personal Data is only collected, processed or used by us if permitted by law or if you have given your prior consent.

We collect data from our patients and use it as part of providing dental treatment to them. This data is held on our server and shared with a third party practice management supplier.

a. Contact Request
We use your Personal Data exclusively to process your request to get in contact with you.

b. Patient Registration
Without your explicit consent we only use your Personal Data to carry out your registration.

In addition, we collect and use your Personal Data in particular for the following purposes, but we will ask for your specific consent to do so:

c. Online and Offline Advertising
Only with your express consent will we send you client satisfaction surveys, information about our services, treatments and events, and if applicable our newsletter.

If you provide us with additional consent to send you marketing materials we may use your data for patient analysis, treatment and oral health education messages and written advertising via email, phone or in print.

d. Right to Object to Advertising
You can object at any time to the use of your Personal Data for advertising or market research purposes. You may also withdraw your consent at any time by simply contacting us via email, phone or in person. Details of how to withdraw consent for receiving marketing materials is available on our website.

e. Online Applications
If applicable, when you apply online for a job opening, training opportunity or internship with us, your information is used for the sole purpose of processing your application. As soon as your data is no longer needed it is deleted or destroyed.

Gaining and Recording Consent
You will be provided with a clear, simple way to opt in to receiving marketing information.
Once consent has been gained the positive opt-in will be recorded on our practice management system.

Data Security
We and our service providers take technical and organisational security measures to protect stored Personal Data against accidental or intentional manipulation, loss, destruction or against access by unauthorised persons. Our data processing and security measures are improved continuously to fall in line with technological developments.