Failed appointments? Reality hurts in Plymouth.

We all have busy lives, it’s true. And there are times when our days don’t go as we’d planned. Failed appointments, though, have a knock-on effect that we’ve been tracking in SpaDental Plymouth. The reality is a painful truth.

Real statistics that will shock you.

Between January 1st and 11th June, 2018, (that’s less than six months) 1,056 patients have failed to attend their dental appointments at SpaDental Plymouth.

The breakdown is as follows:

• 190 hours 50 minutes of appointments with the dentists
•  36 hours 55 minutes of appointments with the hygienists
•  44 hours 10 minutes of appointments with the therapist.

That is a grand total of 271 hours 55 minutes

Failed appointments don’t happen if you can cancel!

All of those missed appointments were times that had been reserved for patients who didn’t attend. They were failed appointments that could have been offered to patients who were in pain or had an emergency of some sort.

We understand that sometimes you may need to cancel an appointment due to other commitments, or an emergency. However, we do ask that you provide us with at least 24 hours notice so that we are able to offer the time to another patient on our standby list, or who contacts us in an emergency.

Patients are able to cancel appointments via the telephone, answer machine or by email.

When you book your appointment, we provide you with an appointment confirmation card that has our cancellation policy on the back.

As a courtesy, we also send out appointment confirmation emails or text reminders. Please don’t rely on our reminders, however.

We ask that patients keep a good record of their appointments.

If you think you have an appointment coming up, but you’ve misplaced your card, then why not give us a call to check?

Loss of NHS Registration.

There are patients who regularly fail to attend their appointments.

Please be aware that if you fail to attend or cancel at late notice* 3 appointments in a year, you will lose your NHS dental registration with us. This means you will be deregistered and unable to receive dental treatment here at the practice, even in an emergency.

You would then need to go back on to the NHS waiting list which currently has a wait time of two years.

Please don’t risk losing your registration with us!

• Keep your appointment card where you can see it.
• Make sure you have easy access to our phone number.
• Check the contact information we hold for you is up to date.
• Use a calendar, and set yourself reminders and alarms.
• Consider traffic and parking.
• Call us to reschedule as soon as you’re in any doubt about whether you can make your appointment.

(*Please note that special consideration is given in extreme circumstances).

Further reading:

• Look after your NHS registration
• NHS England

Useful Links & Information