A dental practice in the West Sussex area

3. Ms E complains the Practice did not correctly refer her for orthodontic treatment after the dentist accidentally broke her brace in September 2017.

4. Ms E explains the damage done to her teeth has caused a speech impairment, she has suffered depression and embarrassment, and does not feel able to smile.

5. By bringing this complaint to us, Ms E would like the Practice to ‘honour its agreement’ and refer her for orthodontic treatment.

6. Ms E went for a check-up at the Practice in September 2017. During the appointment, the dentist broke the back brace on the top set of her teeth. The dentist put glue on the brace to secure it.

7. According to Ms E, the dentist said they would refer her to an orthodontist to get her brace fixed and the waiting time could be up to 18 months.

8. Ms E did not get a referral for orthodontic treatment. She raised her initial complaint to the Practice in November 2020. The Practice responded to her complaint on 16 December. It said it could not ‘assist her with any past treatments’ as there was no remedial treatment outstanding on her records. Ms E then approached the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in March 2021.

10. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so. We have discussed this with Ms E to understand the reasons why she did not complain to us sooner. We have also considered the time the Practice has taken to respond to her complaint.

11. Ms E said the dentist told her in September 2017, her referral for her orthodontic appointment could take up to 18 months to be arranged. As such, it is reasonable to say she would have known her appointment had not been arranged by March 2019 (18 months later). We have taken this as Ms E’s date of becoming aware of the problem. For her complaint to be in time, she would have needed to approach us by March 2020. We did not receive her complaint form until March 2021, so her complaint is approximately one year out of time.

12. It is clear from Ms E’s account to us that she has experienced significant distress because of her broken brace. We are sorry to hear this has had such a big impact on her confidence and we appreciate it has been a really difficult time for her. To better understand her circumstances, we asked Ms E to tell us why she did not complain to the Practice or us sooner.

13. Ms E explained in March 2020 ‘Covid happened nationally’ and there was a lockdown so she could not complain to the Practice earlier. In late 2020, she was able to ‘physically visit the clinic a couple of times’, so she gave the details of her complaint to the receptionist. Ms E told us the receptionist did not log her complaint correctly and this caused a further delay. She explained she escalated her concerns to the Practice manager, who advised her to put her complaint in writing. Ms E followed these instructions and emailed the Practice with her initial complaint in November 2020.

14. As outlined above, we consider Ms E would have known there was a problem with her orthodontic referral by March 2019. This means there was approximately 12 months before the national lockdown where she could have raised her complaint to the Practice. Ms E did not tell us of any reasons or barriers which would have stopped her raising her complaint during this time. This is a significant delay, and we consider it would have been reasonable for her to contact the Practice much sooner with her concerns.

15. We have carefully considered Ms Es account of how COVID-19 and the national lockdown prevented her from raising her complaint to the Practice sooner. Ms E did not submit a formal complaint until November 2020. She did not tell us this was because the Practice had stopped accepting new complaints because of COVID-19. Further, she did not tell us of any other ways COVID-19 had significantly impacted her life, which in turn prevented her from raising a complaint. Without a more detailed explanation to show why COVID-19 and the lockdown stopped her from submitting her complaint, we do not consider this a strong enough reason to set aside our time limit.

16. When Ms E tried to submit her initial complaint in late 2020, the receptionist did not process it straight away. We acknowledge this must have caused her added frustration and we recognise this delay was outside of her control. In November 2020, Ms E submitted her complaint in writing and the Practice investigated it promptly. It provided her with its final response in December 2020. That said, we do not consider the time it took for the Practice to investigate this complaint caused a significant delay in Ms E being able to approach us. Finally, Ms E did not submit her complaint form to us until March 2021. This was three months after receiving her final response letter from the Practice. Ms E did not give us any reasons to explain why she could not approach us sooner with her concerns. We consider this further delay to be unreasonable.

17. In summary, for the reasons stated above, we have decided not to consider this complaint further because it is out of time. We hope to reassure Ms E that we do not wish to diminish in any way the impact her dental treatment has had for her. We also greatly appreciate the time and effort she has taken to bring this complaint to our attention.

1. We have carefully considered Ms E’s complaint about the treatment she received from a dental practice in the West Sussex area (the Practice) after her dental brace broke in September 2017. Ms E told us she has suffered from distress and low self-esteem because of her broken brace, and lack of treatment. Further, she explains she has developed a speech impairment and she has lost her confidence. We are very sorry to hear of the circumstances of her complaint and do not wish to underestimate the significant impact this has had.

2. We have decided not to consider Ms E’s complaint further because it falls outside of our time limit. We have set out the reasons for our decision in full in this statement.