Terms and Conditions

Missed appointment policy

In order to manage our appointment system effectively, it is important that patients attend for their appointments.
Due to the large number of people who make appointments but fail to show up for them or fail to give adequate advance notice when cancelling them, it has become necessary to inform all patients of their responsibility.
Broken and cancelled appointments waste the clinic’s very limited time and hinder other patients who are trying to make an appointment.
If a patient has missed more than 1 appointment, the practice will be eligible to charge a failed to attend fee.

An appointment is considered to have been broken if any of the following occur:
• the patient fails to show up for the appointment,
• the patient appears more than 20 minutes late for a scheduled appointment, or
• the patient calls to cancel an appointment with too little advance notice to allow that appointment time to be rescheduled with another patient (48 hours is the minimum time necessary to avoid a broken appointment).

Patients who wish to cancel dental appointments must do so a minimum of 48 hours in advance of their scheduled appointment. If less notice is given without a valid excuse, the appointment will be considered to have been broken.
patients attend for their appointments.

Private pay as you go patients

Should you be unable to attend your appointment please advise us by telephone or email no later than 48 hours before, or a fail to attend fee will be charged and the booking fee paid be nulled.

We realise that from time to time things happen beyond your control and therefore we would not charge, if this is the first appointment that you have missed. However multiple failed appointments will result in a charge of £1 per minute automatically added to your account (For Example: a 30-minute failed appointment will be charged at £30). Further appointments will only be bookable after settlement of your account. You may also be asked to pay in advance for any future appointments.

Plan members of the practice

As members of The Dental Parlour your membership is costed based on the number of appointments required within the year, therefore should you be unable to attend a booked appointment please notify us within the 48-hour notice period.

Should the required notice period not be given, and we are unable to fill that appointment time then you will be offered of opportunity to either – Book in for your next appointment covered on the membership (usually 6 months’ time) or alternatively if you still wish to be seen you may rebook the appointment for which our standard private pay as you go fee will apply.

Text and email reminders

To help our patients and remind you of booked appointments, we offer a free text and email reminder service on request. If we have your mobile number and/or email address on record, a reminder will be sent to you a few days prior to your appointment. All text messages and emails sent by our system are logged when successfully sent.

It is your responsibility to check texts and emails and to inform us of any changes to your contact details. We will assume that you have received your reminder if it has been logged as successfully sent.

Please note, text messages and emails are sent out of courtesy, not necessity. It is your responsibility to turn up for an appointment on time. Failure of the reminder system for any reason is not sufficient reason for failing to attend your appointment.

Data Protection

The Dental Parlour complies with the 1998 Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and this Policy describes our procedures for ensuring that personal information about patients is processed fairly and lawfully.

In order to provide you with a high standard of dental care and attention, we need to hold personal information about you. This personal data comprises:

• Personal details such as your name, age, address, telephone numbers, email address and your general medical practitioner;
• Your past and current medical and dental condition;
• Radiographs, clinical photographs and study models;
• Information about the treatment we have provided or propose to provide (and its cost);
• Notes of conversations or incidents that might occur for which a record needs to be kept;
• Records of consent to treatment;
• Any correspondence (relating to you) with other healthcare professionals: such as referrals to specialists, for example.

We need to keep comprehensive and accurate personal data about our patients in order to provide them with safe and appropriate dental care.

We will process personal data that we hold about you in the following way:
We will retain your dental records while you are a practice patient. If you cease to be a patient, we will continue to hold them for at least another eleven years, or in the case of children until they reach the age of 25, whichever is the longer.

Personal data about you is held in the practice’s computer system and/or in a manual filing system. The information is not accessible to the public and only authorised members of staff have access to it. Our computer system has secure audit trails and we back up information on every working day.

In order to provide proper and safe dental care, we may need to disclose personal information about you to:
• Your general medical practitioner;
• The hospital or community dental services;
• Other health professionals caring for you;
• Dental Insurance Companies of which you are a member.
• Private dental schemes of which you are a member.

Disclosure will take place on a “need-to-know” basis. Information will only be given to those individuals/organisations who need to have it in order to provide care to you and for the proper administration of Government (whose personnel are also covered by strict confidentiality rules). The recipient will only be given the information that they need to know for these purposes.

In very limited circumstances or when required by law or by a court order, personal data may have to be disclosed to a third party not connected with your dental care. In all other situations, disclosure that is not covered by this Policy will occur only when we have your specific consent. Where possible you will be informed of these requests for disclosure.

You have the right to access the data that we hold about you and to receive a copy. Access may be obtained by making a request in writing. We will levy a fee of £10 for records that are copied. If a request is made to copy x-rays, an extra charge of £40 will be made. We will provide a copy of the record within 40 days of receipt of the request and fee and an explanation of your record should you require it.

If you move to another dental practice we may (at our discretion) loan original x-rays and provide copy notes direct to that practice free of charge on receipt of a written request from them to do so.

If you do not wish personal data we hold about you to be disclosed or used in the way that is described in this Policy, please discuss the matter with your dentist. You have the right to object, but please remember that this may affect our ability to provide you with dental care.

Payment and refund policy

Payment Method
The following credit/debit cards are accepted: MasterCard, Maestro, Visa, Visa Electron.
We also accept cash and bank transfers.

Change of Details
You must inform the practice immediately of any changes to your contact details. Failure to do so will mean that we are not able to provide you with essential information and updates.

Cancellation of Courses of Treatment
If, for any reason, a course of treatment is cancelled, then we will make every reasonable effort to give the patient as much notice as possible. Royal Wharf Dental’s maximum liability will be limited to a refund of the advance payment fee ONLY.

Refunds will be made by the method in which the treatment booking was paid. We will not accept liability for any additional costs or losses incurred by a patient or organisations, which are claimed to have arisen through treatment cancellation. We reserve the right to vary arrangements for the delivery of a treatment plan and in such cases will make reasonable efforts to inform patients in advance.

Cancellation by the Patient
You may cancel a course of treatment for which you have booked an appointment and be fully refunded all fees for treatment not yet performed; provided you give the practice a minimum of 48 hours prior notice.

If 48 hours prior notice is not received, we reserve the right to withhold a proportionate amount of money, based upon the length of the appointment, to cover overheads.

We will refund the money to patients who wish to discontinue treatment at any time. A notice period of 14 days is required upon which they will be eligible for a refund of any amount paid for treatment that they did not receive.

If a patient is receiving any treatment that involves laboratory work and initial work has been carried out; i.e. if the patient is having crowns/bridges or a denture made, and the work has already been started or completed by the laboratory, a proportion of the fee taken on the preparation appointment will be kept to cover the cost of the laboratory invoice.

Refunds will be processed within 14 days after receipt of your request in writing either by e-mail or post:
• E-Mail:
• Address

If you have paid for services not yet provided, that does not involve a laboratory fee, we will either credit your account or refund the transaction paid by the method of which the original payment was made. If the method was cash and you are unable to collect the refund in person, it will be posted to you in the form of a cheque.