The Practice is currently unable to accept new NHS patients. Please contact the practice in 6 months time to find out if our situation has changed.
Since the changes to all NHS dental contracts which took place in 2006, NHS dental registration is no longer available. Patients may hold an account with our Dental Practices, but this does not entitle patients to continued NHS dental treatment with us.
Sharrow, Advent & Springfield Dental are able to offer NHS appointments to patients that have attended for a dental examination within the last 4 years. This allows us to follow NHS NICE guidelines on recalls which says that “no more than 2 years should elapse between examination” and an additional 2 year grace period due to COVID, for patients to return to see us.
By working this way, we are ensuring that we maintain a supportable business model, which will hopefully allow us to continue to offer NHS dental care to our regular attenders and never be put in a position where this option may no longer be available due to a shortage in NHS funding.
NHS funding is provided annually on the basis that the practice achieves a specific activity target. Failure to hit this target may result in a withdrawal of funding. With this being said, we are also required to stay within the given target for our surgery and therefore must allow the NHS availability to be reserved predominantly for our regular attenders, then if the surgery has the capacity to take on new NHS patients throughout the year, we will open this in small phases, not allowing the practice to become overwhelmed with new NHS patients.
Holding an account with Sharrow, Advent & Springfield Dental without a scheduled appointment does not mean you are entitled to NHS routine care with us. We therefore advise all patients to book their recommended recall with the surgery as soon as possible, or when leaving your last check up to avoid ‘lapsing’ from the system. Should patients lapse from the system, our patients will be offered the chance to rejoin our NHS list once they have completed 1 course of private treatment and are signed off ‘Dentally fit’. The practice will always attempt to send a dental reminder at least 48 hours before your scheduled appointment, but will not remind you when you are due to book in. We therefore ask that our patients continue to keep us informed if their contact information changes to avoid missing these reminders.
What happens if I fail my appointment or cancel at short notice?
If you cancel at short notice (under 24 hours) or fail to attend your first NHS appointment with us, then it is unlikely we will be able to offer the opportunity to rebook again.
For our regular patients, our FTA (failed to attend) and short notice cancellation policy states that if an appointment is cancelled with less than 24 hours notice or failed to attend more than 3 times, then the practice will ask you to seek NHS treatment elsewhere.
For all patients that have been removed from our NHS list, you will be given the option to continue at the practice on a private basis. For all private appointments, you will be asked to pay a deposit which is usually 50% of the cost of the appointment. The deposit is then retained by the practice if the appointment is cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, or failed to attend.
We understand that unforeseen circumstances do arise and not always will you be able to give the required notice, but ask that an attempt is always made to let us know prior to your appointment. As well as calling the practice, you can send us an email, and you can contact us on all social media sites linked at the top of this page, or respond to your text reminder which the reception team will then pick up.