Brighton Villa Dental Care Failure to Attend / Late Cancellation Policy

Every year we lose a lot of valuable surgery time due to patients failing to attend their appointments or cancelling at short notice. This makes it more difficult for us to accommodate our patients in need of urgent treatment, for existing patients to book appointments and for new patients to register here.

Private Patients

From 1st April 2019 we will charge for un-used time where a patient fails to attend or cancels without reasonable notice (less than 24 hours before the appointment). A failed to attend charge will be added. This charge will depend on the length of appointment time.

If a failed to attend charge is added a patient’s deposit will be lost and they may need to pay more if deposit taken is not enough to cover surgery time lost.

A payment given in advance for treatment will result in a partial or full loss of advance payment. This will depend on length of appointment.

Failed to attend charges can vary:

30 minutes from £50.00

45 minutes from £75.00

1 Hour from £150.00

2 Hours from £250.00

Late cancellation charges from £50.00 will apply if an appointment is cancelled within 24 hours and we are unable to fill the time.

Patients who are unable to make their appointment because of illness should, where possible, contact the practice as soon as they are aware that they cannot attend. If patients are unsure whether they can make it to an appointment, please contact us early to discuss the matter rather than leaving it to the last minute. Failing to notify us before the appointment time will result in a failure to attend charge being made unless there are exceptional circumstances.

We understand that scenarios do occur, and discretion will be used if there is a good reason for the appointment being missed.

Denplan Patients

Missed appointment fees and late cancellation fees will also apply to all Denplan Patients.

Please refer to your Denplan Care or Denplan Essentials Handbook under ‘The Care/Essentials Contract between you and your dentist’ (Point 10):

“You are responsible for keeping appointments made with your dentist and you must pay any missed appointment fee should you fail to do so. You must ensure that you also attend your dentist for regular examinations, receive the treatment your dentist advises, and you must promptly inform you dentist of any injury, problem or other material matter affecting your oral health. If you fail to ensure any of this you will be liable to pay any fee charged for treatment necessary to restore your oral health, which could otherwise have been avoided.”

NHS Patients

Under NHS regulations, we are unable to charge NHS patients who fail to attend for their appointments or who cancel at short notice (less than 24 hours is insufficient notice).

We have experienced a large number of NHS patients, often whole families, failing to attend their appointments.

If NHS patients fail to attend two appointments within two years. This will result to them being contacted and made aware they will be removed from the practice patient list and will have to find a new dental practice to attend.

We ask all patients to please notify the practice if you cannot attend on 01432 272925 or by emailing reception@brightonvilladental.co.uk.

Reminders

Text and email reminders are available for all appointments. If we have your contact information on file, we can provide a reminder by text or email 48 hours in advance of your appointment.

It is the patients responsibility to check their text messages, missed calls, answer phone messages and emails to ensure that you have been informed of any changes in your appointments.

If there are any changes to a patients contact information we ask for them to let us know as soon as possible.

Please note, reminders are provided out of courtesy only. Therefore it is a patient’s responsibility to attend and on time for their appointment. Failure of our reminder system for any reason is not a sufficient reason for failing to attend or turning up too late for appointments.

Brighton Villa Dental Care

Practice Payment, Deposit Policy.

We try to make payment as straightforward as possible for all our patients.

It is our practice policy to give patients full information about the cost of their dental treatment before it is undertaken.

A list and explanation of NHS charges and our private fees is available at reception.

You may pay for your dental care by cash or credit/debit card unfortunately we no longer accept Cheque payments.

NHS patients will be asked to pay for proposed treatment in advance of the appointment booking.

All Private patients will be asked for a deposit when booking all appointments. This includes Examination appointments even in advance.

Private patients and Denplan Essential patients will be asked for a percentage of the purposed treatment in advance, including a deposit. Amount depending on length of appointment.

We have experienced a high volume of failed to attend and late cancellations and have found a significant change since taking deposits.

If the treatment involves a laboratory fee, all patients are asked to pay for up to half of the treatment in advance. This is so the laboratory can be paid at each stage and for their services once work is completed.

Please note. The deposit and percentage of the cost of treatment maybe more to those patients whose attendance is poor.

Private and NHS patients also have the option to join one of our private dental care schemes with Denplan.

Private treatments costing over £1500 will be asked to pay a deposit of £500 or above before the first appointment is booked, this will be discussed with you before booking. The remaining balance will then be spread over the length of treatment only up to a maximum of 12 months. The final balance being paid on the penultimate appointment.

Please ask our receptionist team for further information concerning what deposits are expected for each appointment. This information is displayed in our waiting area.

Reviewed and updated by NJ 3.2025

Reviewed and updated by NJ 8.2025