Cancellations, Failed, and Missed Appointments Policy

We aim to provide all of our patients with the best possible service and to achieve this, we need your cooperation. It is inevitable that sometimes you may need to cancel or rearrange your dental appointments. We ask patients to give as much notice as possible when cancelling an appointment so we have the opportunity to offer it to someone else, although we understand that during an emergency this is not always possible. Non-attendance and cancellations at short notice without a valid reason deprive other patients of our services.

Impact of Missed Appointments

Appointments are often wasted as people do not attend. These appointments could have been used by other patients.

Policy on Failed Attendance

• First Missed Appointment: The first time a patient fails to attend a booked appointment, we will send a letter or e-mail reminding them that in the future, they must cancel appointments if they are unable to attend.
• Repeated Missed Appointments: After two failed-to-attend instances, we will advise you that we will no longer be able to book further appointments, at the discretion of the practice manager.

Definition of a Broken Appointment

An appointment is considered to have been broken if any of the following occur:

• The patient fails to show up for the appointment.
• The patient appears more than 15 minutes late for a scheduled appointment.
• The patient calls to cancel an appointment with too little advance notice to allow that appointment time to be rescheduled with another patient (48 hours will be considered the minimum time necessary to avoid a broken appointment).

Cancellation Notice

Patients who wish to cancel dental appointments must do so a minimum of 48 hours in advance of their scheduled appointment. If less notice is given without a valid excuse, the appointment will be considered to have been broken, and the deposit for that appointment will become non-refundable.