Appointment Management and Cancellation Policy
At Toftwood Dental Practice, we are committed to providing high quality dental care while ensuring that clinical time is used effectively. To support this, we have a clear appointment management and cancellation policy in place.
Appointment reminders
E-mail reminders are sent to patients 7 days and 3 days before any appointment and patients are requested to inform the practice of any changes to their contact details.
Text reminders may be sent to patients 3 days before any appointment if the emails are not successfully delivered.
While we will make every effort to provide appointment reminders, we respectfully advise that you do not rely on these notifications, and take responsibility for remembering your upcoming appointments.
Cancellation or Delay Of An Appointment By The Practice
We will only cancel or delay a patient’s appointment in unavoidable circumstances. In such cases, we will take the following steps:
- The patient will be contacted as soon as the practice is aware of the need to cancel or delay the appointment. We will explain the reason for the cancellation or delay.
- At the time of contact, the patient will be offered a new appointment at the earliest time available.
- If the patient is unable to commit to a new appointment during that contact, we will ask them to get in touch at a later time, when we will offer them a priority appointment.
Cancellation or Delay Of An Appointment or Missed Appointment By a Patient
Patients are requested to give at least 48 hours’ notice to cancel a dental appointment, this excludes weekends. Cancellations over the weekend for a Monday appointment can be done via email or voicemail. Cancellations should be made by telephone on: 01362 699342 or email info@toftwooddentalpractice.co.uk. Late cancellations and missed appointments may represent a cost to the practice, when other patients could have been seen in the time set aside for the patient.
There is a fee for private dental appointments that are missed or cancelled with less than 48 hours’ notice. The fee is based on the length of the appointment and can be found in the private fees list. It is usually 50% of the missed appointment.
We do not charge our Practice Plan patients for late cancellations or missed examinations. However, you will not be entitled to bring your next check up forward. If you require an additional examination, this will be chargeable.
We understand that cancellations are sometimes unavoidable due to illness or emergencies and we will take account of all valid circumstances. However, if this is the case and we have been able to waver the fee, we may ask you to pay for your appointment in full when you rebook it.
We will usually not see patients if they are more than 10 minutes late, due to needing to stick to strict appointment times. We may charge for failed to attend appointment if no good reason is given.
Any appeals about missed or cancelled appointment decisions by a patient should be made in writing to the Deputy Practice Manager Leah Smith or Practice Manager Alistair Clack.
Last Modified: 28/07/2025
