Terms of Business

On occasion we receive requests to assist a third party with an active course of treatment they are delivering and/or have prescribed.

Common examples include where patients are on holiday local to us and require emergency care relating to an ongoing course of treatment, or where patients are undergoing treatment outside of the UK and require a supplementary service in the UK such as emergency care or a radiograph.

Providing safe and effective care is more difficult where a patient is actively undergoing treatment with a third party, as there is a risk that any treatment we provide compromises the active course of treatment or is at odds with the third-party clinician's objectives or standards.

Where our ability to provide safe and effective care is compromised, we reserve the right to reject a patient for treatment and/or refer patients to a more suitable service.

Specifically, we are unable to provide treatment under the direction or prescription of a third-party clinician except where we have a relationship with that clinician and have explicity agreed to do so.

We do not accept inbound referrals for radiographs only.

See also TREATMENT DELIVERED BY THIRD PARTIES.

We encourage children to register and attend our practices from an early age. A full suite of private dental services and membership packages designed for children and families are available at all of our sites.

Where possible, we will on request provide appointments to allow all family members to attend at the same time. When more than one child is attending we do ask that, where possible, two adult family members attend to look after children who are waiting in the patient lounge.

We define a child as any patient who is under the age of 18 at the point of treatment.

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.

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.

Patient Concerns
West End Dental Group
104 Conway Road
Colwyn Bay LL29 7LL

info@westend-dental.com
01492 532168

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

If you remain dissastisfied you can request that your complaint is escalated to a Director. We will aim to acknowledge your request within 2 working days and provide a final response within 20 working days.

If we are not able to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction then you may wish to contact the Dental Complaints Service, Stephenson House, 2 Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon, CR0 6BA (Telephone: 020 8253 0800).

You may also wish to contact Health Inspectorate Wales, Rhydycar Business Park, Merthyr Tydfil, CF48 1UZ (Telephone: 0300 062 8163).

On occasion, we may offer consultations free of charge to new or prospective patients. These are known as Complimentary Consultations.

Complimentary Consultations are not a substitute for New Patient Consultations or Routine Dental Consultations.

Whilst clinicians will use the time to conduct initial assessments of your dental health and discuss your dental concerns in outline, they may require further appointments before they can diagnose a condition or offer treatment. Any further appointments are subject to our usual charges.

Complimentary Consultations are limited to one per customer, at our sole discretion.

If you do not attend a Complimentary Consultation or need to cancel at short notice (see Short Notice Cancellations & Failure to Attend) we will be happy to reschedule, but our standard consultation fees will apply.

Existing patients are not entitled to Complimentary Consultations. We define an existing patient as an any individual who has visited any West End Dental practice, for whatever reason, within the previous 24 months.

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 is to ensure you understand it and to confirm that the Treatment Estimate has been issued to you. It is also confirms that you agree to abide by our Terms of Business and settle the costs quoted if treatment does 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 Customer Care Team who 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 45 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 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.

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 queries regarding your treatment.

As a minimum we will always ask to record your postal address, email address, a daytime contact telephone number 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 neversell your data to third parties. Your data will only be transferred to a third party with your explicit consent in the context of your dental health or treatment, subject to our obligations under relevant legislation.

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.

APPOINTMENT CONFIRMATIONS AND REMINDERS

By default, we do not issue appointment confirmations at the time of booking. If you would like a confirmation either in writing or by email, please let us know.

Appointment reminders are sent by text message 14 days before an appointment. 

We then send a second appointment reminder 2 days before an appointment by text message. If we do not have a mobile number on file, we will issue an email instead at 2 days.

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.

We regret that we cannot offer personal reminders of appointments by telephone.

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 CONSULTATIONS

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 a variety of methods following an appointment to follow-up on the service 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 regular basis. In addition, we occasionally send out special offers or information about events at the practice or in the West End Dental Group by email.

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

To this end, 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 clinicians and 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 a small charge is normally made for this service. If you have any questions about your medical records please do not hesitate to contact one of the Customer Care Team.

You can view our full Privacy Policy here.

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 send patients with amounts owing a statement by post (and email if applicable) with a request for payment 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.

A number of services we provide, especially surgical treatments, involve a significant investment in terms of preparation time and materials. For many treatments, the materials we order and use are bespoke to the patient and the treatment being delivered.

In addition, the clinical team will take a significant amount of time to prepare for the treatment to ensure our high standards are consistently met.

For this reason, we charge a deposit or advance fees for all services on the following terms.
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CONSULTATIONS

Fees due for consultations must be paid in advance at the time of booking. We are unable to confirm an appointment date or time before this fee is collected.

If you cancel your appointment at short notice, or fail to attend, the consultation charge shall be forfeited. A second charge will apply to any rescheduled appointment. See SHORT NOTICE CANCELLATIONS & FAILURE TO ATTEND.

DENTAL IMPLANT TREATMENT

A deposit of £500 or 10% of the total treatment cost, whichever is the greatest, is required prior to booking any treatment appointments.

Fees for treatment are then collected in advance of each stage, per your Payment Schedule.

The deposit is held on account, and will be credited to your final treatment charge. If you choose to withdraw from treatment at any stage, the deposit will be applied to any remaining charges.

You are require to maintain this credit on your account until your final treatment appointment. If your credit fall below this amount we will require an additional payment on account before further appointments are confirmed.

The above does not apply to treatments paid in full via Patient Finance.

INVISALIGN TREATMENT

A deposit of £500 is required prior to booking your ClinCheck appointment. If you choose to cancel your ClinCheck appointment, the deposit will be returned to you subject to our SHORT TERM CANCELLATIONS & FAILURE TO ATTEND policy.

The above does not apply to treatments paid in full via Patient Finance.

The full fee is then due before your treatment commences.

OTHER TREATMENTS

Fees due for treatments must be paid in advance at the time of booking. We are unable to confirm an appointment date or time before this fee is collected.

Ordinarily, we will ask for the full treatment fee to be paid, regardless of whether treatment is carried out over multiple appointments. For some very complex treatments, we may ask for fees in stages.

The above does not apply to treatments paid in full via Patient Finance.

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 our child patients with their parents and/or legal guardians

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.

The West End Dental Group operate a number of dental practices throughout North Wales. When you register with us, you will be registering with a specific dental practice, your ‘home’ practice. You will be charged for treatment on the basis of the fees in place at that practice.

On occasion we may refer you internally within the Group. This may be for a single appointment (e.g. a panoramic x-ray scan at our diagnostic centre in Colwyn Bay) or for a full course of treatment with one of our clinical team. If this happens, you will remain registered at your home practice but may be asked to visit another West End Dental Group practice for your appointment(s).

Services delivered by other practices within the Group are chargeable at their fee schedule and not that of your home practice

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 24 months or more.

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 not invoice treatment to an insurer, employer or other third party without the explicit agreement of both the third party and West End Dental.

You can access our Membership Terms using the button below.

We are always pleased to welcome new patients to West End Dental and we want to ensure that your experience is a pleasant and enjoyable one. We accept all patients on a non-discriminatory basis, and a copy of our Equality Policy is available on request.

When you first contact us you will be invited to discuss your dental health and aspirations with one of our Treatment Co-ordinators who will help you to select the right clinician for your first consultation.

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 or CT-Scan). OPGs and 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.

After your Initial Consultation you can expect to understand any treatment options available to you, or the requirement for additional diagnosis and investigation.

In all cases, costs will be explained to you and made avaialble in writing via a Treatment Estimate. In addition, our most common charges are available via Fee Posters in all of our practices.

We 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
- BACS transfers by prior arrangement

We regret that we no longer accept cash or cheque payments.

In addition, we offer finance on a variety of treatments, including 0% APR interest-free finance. Finance is not available for all terms for all treatments in all sites. Ask a member of our Customer Care 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. If this is not viable, we will issue a direct bank transfer.

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 recall appointments, are vital to the ongoing maintenance of your dental health.

We usually recommend that a patient who is not undergoing a course of treatment invests in their dental health by attending at least one 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 cancel your appointment at short notice or you fail to attend an appointment you deprive other patients of that clinical time and cause significant disruption to the practice.

To ensure the best possible experience for all of our patients, we enforce a policy to manage short notice cancellations and missed appointments.

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 24 hours notice excluding weekends and bank holidays.

If you are attending a dental implant placement appointment we require 72 hours notice, excluding weekends and bank holidays. For example if you cancel on a Friday afternoon for a Monday morning appointment you will not have provided us with the required notice.

If you fail to attend an appointment or you cancel an appointment without adequate notice we may levy a charge of £200 per hour missed or cancelled at short notice against your account, or at our entire discretion we shall retain all or part of any advance payment for the relevant appointment as a charge.

Alternatively, at our discretion we may ask that you pay in advance to secure your next appointment – the amount paid will be credited against the cost of your next appointment when you attend.

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.

On very rare occasions, where a clinician is unwell or there is a problem with our facilities, we may be required to reschedule your appointment at short notice. We always endeavour to see patients where facilities and clinical resources allow but we will not proceed with appointments where we are unable to ensure our usual high standards and we ask for our patients’ understanding in these circumstances.

It is important that you disclose details of any dental treatment delivered outside of the West End Dental Group to your clinician. You should do this by completing the relevant question in your Medical History and providing your clinician with details at your consultation.

The human body is a complex system and many dental treatments will impact on others, often in ways that are not obvious or predictable for laypersons. It is essential to ensuring safe and effective care that your clinical team understands your full Medical History, including previous dental treatment.

It is our policy to prescribe the widest range of treatment possible and to assist patients wherever we can. However, we can only do so where we can deliver safe and effective care within normal ethical boundaries.

Sometimes we are unable to offer some or even any treatment due to dental or other treatment delivered by third parties. This is more likely, but not exclusively the case, where:

- A patient is undergoing an active course of treatment being delivered by a third-party service
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- A patient has received dental treatment using systems or technologies that are unknown to us, e.g. a dental implant system we are not familiar with or do not carry tools for
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- A patient has received dental care in a country or a system that has substantially different standards than applied in the UK

Wherever our ability to provide safe and effective care is compromised, we reserve the right to reject a patient for treatment and/or refer patients to a more suitable service.

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 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 for more information.

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