General Dental Council Reviews 5

The Dental Complaints Service (DCS) claims to be impartial, but my experience shows the opposite. Despite clear evidence of poor clinical treatment and suspicious medical records, the DCS repeatedly claimed the case was “outside their remit.”

They ignored serious issues such as treatment without radiographs or informed consent, treating a professional conduct matter as a minor service dispute. Their process lacks transparency and seems more focused on protecting the dentist than ensuring patient safety.

One star rating because Dental Complaints System (DCS) needs completely sorting out. 1: they are supposed to protect patients from abuse, but they and their subsidiary the Dental Complaints Service try to make you go back to the dentist even if they may have abused you. 2: I persuaded the DCS to let me submit concerns to the General Dental Council (GDC) for public protection. They took months to find there was no evidence that the Dentist who maltreated me (see Dr Ali Yazdani, South Cliff Dental Group) was not properly qualified or registered, though apparently sharing some concern. 3: Dental regulation is spread around GDC, DCS, Care Quality Commission, NHS Integrated Care Boards but all of them push you back to making your complaint at first to the very practice which has maltreated or even abused you. No wonder that they also advise that legal action may be necessary! There is no chance of using such a system easily or effectively: see what people on Google have to say about the DCS too! Government, sort it out; give us an economical system (with appeal) which protects all dental patients against abuse, poor and malpractice, through one simple route.

I was a Client a Dentistry, trading as CastleView Dental within 5.5 years through Pandemic, Brexit, my illness...Money was taken upfront, of course and as soon as I found out, that CastleView Dental is not going to complete their obligations, I asked them about a complaint procedure and Contacted this organisation. My contact was Sarah Weis. She works 3 days a week and she did not bother to write back, just gives calls. During our conversation she advised me to take CastleView Dental to Court. But the Court does not believe in words,I asked her to write her refusal down twice: last year and 4 days ago...She called again.
If Ms Sarah Weis does not want to work and not going to explain her position in writing, please, provide me with another employee who confirms, I tried to sort my desigreement with CastleView Dental out of Court and used all opportunities. But I put my life on hold for too long. I am contacting the Police, because during my "treatment" was made a criminal offence (no time limit for responsibility): a participation of Portugal team without British licence in my treatment. Writing black on white in Medical Notes and letters.

Having had quite a distressing experience with my dentist I felt my only route to resolve the issues was through the Dental Complaints Service.

Though it was an extremely slow process, I was treated with kindness and care. They were unable to resolve the issues due to the dentist refusing to deal with the issues they caused, so it went to a panel of experts and lay people to make a decision on the course of action needed.

The hearing was very daunting and I must confess I was a bag of nerves, but I was given time to state my case of what had gone on and though the dentist spent a lot of time talking and not giving me much room to respond. The outcome was in my favour and the dentist finally refunded my money!

It’s always worth seeking help because patients can be very vulnerable and left feeling very distressed and powerless when the service you receive isn’t appropriate.

So I’m giving 4 stars because of a good service, maybe 5 stars had it not been such a long time.