Registration

There are two levels of registration with the practice:

1. Ordinary registration, which comes into effect once a person has attended for their first appointment AND been given a practice registration card. Registration is free and is indefinite, unless you or we cancel it. If you normally attend and don't have a registration card, you will receive one at your next visit. By attending an appointment, this does not oblige us to register a person, and is entirely at our discretion.
2. Membership of the Maintenance Plan, which is a monthly subscription scheme, whereby you gain additional benefits and the price includes 6 monthly 5 minute dental examination and a 20 minute hygienist appointment or 15 minute exam and cleaning with the dentist.

Use of the registration or maintenance plan card

They are designed to fit in your wallet or purse, so that you have details to hand when you need them. Of necessity these cards are printed only occasionally and details could go out of date, or be changed temporarily. This website is updated regularly to reflect changes, but contact telephone numbers for out of hours contacts in particular may change from hour to hour and these will be available on our answerphone. Please listen to the message in full, and be ready to write down a telephone number.

If you are due a treatment discount, you need to produce your card and the percentage will be deducted from your bill. Discounts are only against treatment provided at this practice. If you receive some of your treatment on referral, for example orthodontic braces, charges and payments are between you and the treating dentist.

Discounts off treatment charges

When you receive your registration card you will notice a percentage printed in red, this is your current discount. This is not transferable.

Our model of dental care is to see someone new, make them dentally healthy (which may take several hours of treatment), and then maintain them over the following years (which usually takes just minutes each year). This means we can't rely on the income from existing patients to keep the practice viable from one year to the next, instead we need to attract a steady flow of new patients all the time. You can help us maintain viability, stability, and growth of the practice, by introducing new adult patients. We welcome this support, and in recognition of this you generate a discount on treatment received for yourself, which continues for as long as you are registered.

It works in the following way:

1. You introduce an adult patient to the practice.
2. Once registered (remember not everyone who attends will be registered, but that would be rare), you gain an additional 1% discount on any treatment carried out here, including cosmetic work. You need to let us know that you are recommending someone, so that we can replace your card. They may not tell us why they have chosen to contact us.
3. If that person subsequently joins the maintenance plan, this is doubled to 2%.
4. By introducing additional people you can reach a maximum discount of 10% if you are registered and 20% if you are on the maintenance plan. We will reconsider these maximum levels, with a view to increasing them when people are nearing their limit, but at this stage we can't guarantee further discounts without assessing the impact.

Cancellation of registration

By you

You may cancel registration or membership at any time by emailing us. We would be grateful for an explanation, particularly if we have failed to live up to your expectations.

You may revert from the maintenance plan to ordinary registration at any time, by letting us know.

By us

Registration

We may cancel registration in the following circumstances:

• You fail to pay for treatment or other charges
• You fail to attend for appointment and we receive no reason for this
• other exceptional circumstances, such as violence/abuse to staff. (We don't like to think about these, but ill-health retirement or premature death of the dentist, would be other grounds, where we were unable to provide further care, unless by then, a new dentist has been introduced into the practice. This is our aim to ensure continuity of care for you.)

Maintenance plan

We may take someone off the maintenance plan, if they don't meet their standing order payments. These often occur unintentionally, when people move home, change bank accounts and so on and we cannot make contact.

We cannot stop a standing order. If you move away from the area, for example, and fail to cancel it, payments will still continue. We will still provide benefits, such as emergency out of hours contact, discounts, send and allocate appointments, and so on, but on your next contact you will need to bring your account up to date. In such circumstances you should not expect a refund, because we still have to make provision for your care, preventing use of the time for someone else.

It is important to let us know of your changing circumstances to avoid payment when you don't intend it.

Should you leave the area with a possibility of return, you may cancel your maintenance plan, but retain registration, thus preserving your discount for patient introductions.

Important Advice

In case of emergency or other exceptional circumstances, you may need to seek NHS care. If you state that you are registered elsewhere, the receptionist may have been directed to say that you return to the dentist you are registered with, leaving you in pain or missing a crown or bridge, for example.

As much as anyone else, you are entitled to NHS care when you need it, so it may not be in your best interests to divulge registration elsewhere, alternatively you may insist that you are treated, but this latter approach may be unsuccessful, merely increasing your stress.