Dentist cancellation fee

tollytolly

Just wondering....
I made a dentist appointment for a Monday morning, my son took ill over the weekend and I had to cancel it, which I did first thing on the Monday (the surgery is shut over the weekend and they have no answer phone). I was then told I'd be subject to a £10 cancellation fee as I hadn't given the required 24 hours notice.
I understand this, obviously, but surely this is unfair if there is no means of cancelling within the required 24 hour period.
It's only £10, so I'm probably going to pay it to avoid the hassle, but I was just wondering if this is legal?
Thanks!

vyle

I don't see why it wouldn't be. Is it NHS or private dentist? You can refuse to pay, but then the dentist can refuse to see you in the future. I would hope that in such situations one would be able to appeal to their better nature, but I would rather my teeth were looked after and chalk it down to bad luck, then end up without a dentist.

joedenise

Not much use for this time but in future don't make appointments for Monday then the same can't happen again.

Denise

shaun_from_Africa

joedenise wrote: »

Not much use for this time but in future don't make appointments for Monday then the same can't happen again.

Surely it can happen any day of the week and not just Monday.

The OP might have booked for Wednesday morning but if their son became ill on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, they might not be able to keep their appointment and they still wouldn't have been able to give the required 24hrs cancellation notice.

withabix

You have a choice.

Pay your £10 or lose your NHS dentist.

Too many people don't bother turning up for appointments. That's the problem.

NHS dentists only get paid for attended appointments - they don't get paid a salary.

You can always go private instead...

System

This is a standard practice for dentists. £10 is in fact quite cheap. You agreed to this when you booked your appointment. If you don't want to pay then I doubt they can do anything. However you will need to find a new dentist.

Barneysmom

NHS dentists cannot charge anything for cancelled appointments any more.

Cnap

At this time of year, due to the alignment of the sun, there are only 24 hours over each weekend period. Therefore it is entirely possible to give 24 hours notice at any time of week.

londondent

As the previous poster has mentioned, you can no longer be charged a fine/fee for missed/ short notice cancellations if you are attending for an NHS appointment.

However the practice can refuse to see you if you have a history of missing appointments/ turning up late/ cancelling with short notice.

£10 is incredibly cheap. It costs upwards of £150 to run one room in a dental practice, if patients don't turn up, we still have to pay those costs. so £10 doesn't go anywhere near towards covering that.

If you were booked for a private treatment, then a fee can be charged.

tollytolly

Thanks everyone (mostly everyone). I checked the nhs website just now and you're right, they shouldn't charge. I've never had to cancel before so it hadn't even crossed my mind about a charge being applied. I understand completely why they have these charges and don't begrudge them, I was just surprised because it wasn't actually possible to give any notice.
I'm going to pay because I like my dentist, he's great and as I said, I don't want any hassle from it, I was just curious! Thanks again.

brook2jack

Actually depending on where you are nhs dentists can still charge for missed appointments in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Considering it costs at least £150 an hour to run one room in a NHS practice £10 is only a token amount.

Local to is 40% of new patients fail to turn up for dental appointments and failure rates of regular patients rocketed up once charges were removed for no shows. So now most practices operate a two strikes and no more appointments as they cannot afford to have surgeries standing empty , especially when the average nhs practice operates cancellation lists for people with toothache to be slotted in.