How To Handle Patient Complaints Professionally (UK)

What is the correct way to handle a patient complaint at a dental practice?

Handling a patient complaint professionally means acknowledging it promptly, following a written complaints procedure that meets General Dental Council (GDC) Standard 5.1, investigating the issue fairly, responding in writing within a reasonable timeframe, and telling the patient how to escalate the complaint if they remain unhappy with the outcome.

GDC Standard 5.1 requires every dental professional and practice to have an effective, well-publicised system for handling complaints, and to use that system honestly and openly. This applies equally to NHS practices, private practices, and mixed practices. The specific escalation route available to a patient afterwards depends on whether they were treated under the NHS or privately, which is the point most consumer-facing guidance gets wrong (see the section below).

What must a dental practice complaints procedure include?

A complaints procedure that meets GDC Standard 5.1 should be written down, given or made available to patients, and followed consistently. At minimum it should cover:

• How a patient can make a complaint (in person, by phone, in writing, or by email), and who receives it.
• A named person responsible for handling complaints at the practice.
• A clear acknowledgement timeframe. Under the NHS complaints regulations, a complaint should be acknowledged within 3 working days.
• A full written response provided as soon as reasonably practicable, with the patient kept informed of progress if the investigation takes longer than expected.
• What happens if the complaint cannot be resolved locally, including the correct escalation route for the patient's circumstances.
• How the practice records and reviews complaints to identify recurring issues.

The GDC's own guidance, "How to make a complaint or raise a concern," sets out patients' rights but does not itself investigate individual complaints. Practices sometimes assume the GDC acts as an appeals body. It does not. The GDC's role is fitness-to-practise regulation of individual registrants, not consumer redress.

What is the difference between NHS and private dental complaint escalation?

If a patient is not satisfied after a practice has responded to their complaint, where they can take it next depends on how they were treated:

NHS patients: Complaints about NHS dental treatment follow the process set out in the Local Authority Social Services and NHS Complaints (England) Regulations 2009. If the practice's response does not resolve the issue, the patient can escalate to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), which is the final stage of the NHS complaints process in England.

Private patients: The PHSO has no jurisdiction over privately arranged dental treatment. A private patient who remains unhappy after the practice's own process can instead use the Dental Complaints Service (for complaints about private dental care in the UK) or, if the practice is a member, an independent scheme such as ISCAS (the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service).

Mixed practices: Many UK dental practices treat both NHS and private patients. The correct escalation route depends on how that specific patient's treatment was funded, not on the practice type as a whole. This distinction is worth stating clearly to patients at the point a complaint is acknowledged, since directing an NHS patient to the Dental Complaints Service (or vice versa) will send them down the wrong route and prolong the dispute.

How should staff respond when a patient raises a complaint in person?

Most complaints are raised verbally before they are ever put in writing. How that first conversation goes often determines whether the complaint escalates. Three things matter most:

1. Acknowledge without arguing. Confirm you have heard the concern and will look into it, even if you believe the patient is mistaken. Disputing the complaint on the spot rarely helps and can be perceived as dismissive.
2. Take a written note at the time. Record what was said, by whom, and when, while it is fresh. This protects both the patient and the practice if the complaint is later escalated.
3. Explain what happens next. Tell the patient who will handle it, roughly how long it will take, and how they will hear back. Uncertainty about the process is one of the most common reasons a straightforward complaint turns into a formal one.

What do dental patients most commonly complain about?

Based on published GDC and CQC guidance on recurring complaint themes, the most common categories are:

• Communication: patients feeling treatment options, risks, or costs were not clearly explained before treatment began.
• Cost and billing: unexpected charges or confusion over what was covered under NHS bands versus private pricing.
• Appointment access: difficulty booking, long waits, or cancelled appointments.
• Treatment outcome: dissatisfaction with the clinical result, which may or may not indicate an actual clinical issue.
• Attitude and manner: how a patient felt they were treated by staff, separate from the clinical care itself.

Recording complaints by category, not just by outcome, makes it possible to spot patterns. A practice fielding repeated communication complaints has a different problem to solve than one fielding repeated billing complaints.

How should a practice use complaints data to improve?

A complaints procedure that only closes individual cases is missing half its value. Reviewing complaint records periodically, for example quarterly, helps a practice identify whether a specific process, member of staff, or communication gap is generating repeat issues.

Because complaint records contain personal and often sensitive information, practices should also be clear with patients about how long records are kept and who can access them. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 19 June 2025, updates parts of the UK's data protection framework and reinforces the importance of practices being transparent about how patient data, including complaint records, is processed and retained.

Should a complaints process affect who is asked to leave a review?

No. A patient complaints procedure and a review invitation process should be kept entirely separate. Filtering which patients receive a request to leave a public review based on how satisfied they seem, sometimes called review gating, breaches Google's guidelines on review solicitation and can fall foul of consumer protection rules enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

In practice, this means every patient should have the same opportunity to leave a public review, regardless of whether they have also raised a complaint. A private feedback channel, separate from the public review invitation, is the appropriate place to capture and act on dissatisfaction before it becomes a public review.

Handling patient complaints professionally means having a written procedure that meets GDC Standard 5.1, responding quickly and without defensiveness, and directing patients to the correct escalation route for their circumstances: the PHSO for NHS patients, or the Dental Complaints Service or a scheme such as ISCAS for private patients. Complaints data should also inform ongoing improvement, handled transparently under current UK data protection law, and must always remain separate from how the practice invites public reviews.

Sources

• General Dental Council, Standards for the Dental Team, Standard 5.1 (Complaints handling)
• General Dental Council, "How to make a complaint or raise a concern"
• Care Quality Commission, Dental Mythbuster 34: Complaints
• Local Authority Social Services and NHS Complaints (England) Regulations 2009
• Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (Royal Assent 19 June 2025)