Cancellation Policy - The Family Dental Practice, Gorebridge

Late Cancellation and Failed to Attend Policy

We value the opportunity to provide you with the highest quality care. To ensure we can continue offering timely appointments, we kindly request your cooperation in adhering to our late cancellation and failed to attend policy. We understand that unforeseen circumstances may occasionally require last-minute changes to your appointments. However, we have recently experienced a significant increase in missed appointments, resulting in valuable clinical time being lost - time that could otherwise be dedicated to patients in need of care.

To ensure we can continue providing timely treatment to all our patients, we kindly ask that you notify us at least one business day in advance if your scheduled appointment becomes inconvenient. This notice allows us to allocate the time to another patient who may require urgent attention.

Policy Details

Notice Period: A minimum of 24 business hours is required to reschedule or cancel an appointment.

Missed Appointment Fee: Failure to provide the required notice or failure to attend a scheduled appointment will incur a charge of £1 per minute. (e.g., a 10-minute appointment will result in a £10 fee).

Applicability: This policy applies to all patients, including NHS, private, and those exempt from treatment charges.

While we understand that emergencies can arise, we assess all valid circumstances on a case-by-case basis. However:

Patients who miss two appointments within an 18-month period without sufficient notice may have their access to future treatment withdrawn.

Patients with a pattern of frequent missed or cancelled appointments may be removed from the practice’s patient list. In such cases, we will provide a three-month written notice via email before deregistration.

Patients arriving more than ten minutes late for their appointment may not be seen and may need to reschedule.

Our policy is in line with NHS Inform Scotland guidance, which states that dental practices may charge patients for failed to attend or late-cancelled appointments if sufficient notice is not given, in order to reflect the clinical time lost and support effective use of resources.

For full details on NHS dental treatment costs and patient responsibilities in Scotland, please see the NHS Inform Scotland guidance.

Late Cancellation and Failed to Attend Policy

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