A dental practice in the Redbridge area

4. Mrs H complains about aspects of the care the Practice gave to her daughter, P, on 22 December 2020. She complains that:

• the dentist extracted (removed) the top left central baby incisor (tooth) by deliberately twisting it very hard inside the gum before pulling it out • afterwards the dentist deliberately used their finger to press on the left side of P’s adult central incisor above the wound • when the dentist extracted a third tooth (the top right baby lateral incisor) it bled a lot. She says the dentist tried to use a few cotton pads to stop the bleeding but the cotton pads were immediately covered in blood.

5. Mrs H says because of this, P’s teeth have been permanently damaged, and there has been damage to her facial appearance and personal confidence. She says there is also now a potential for future tooth problems. She says P’s adult top left central incisor is in a worse position. She says P felt pain, got an infection after the treatment, and the treatment affected her eyesight. P also experienced sleepless nights for two months.

6. Mrs H would like financial compensation, the Practice to admit its mistakes, for the Practice to re-register P as a patient and for it to make a plan to fix the damage to P’s teeth.

7. On 22 December 2020, P had three baby teeth extracted during an appointment at the Practice. The top left baby central incisor, top left baby lateral incisor and top right baby lateral incisor (all front teeth).

8. P complained to Mrs H after the tooth extraction that she was terrified with pain by the extraction.

9. On 23 December 2020, the right adult lateral incisor fell out. Mrs H told us that the next day the gum around the top right lateral incisor developed an infection. She said on 1 January 2021, the gum infection spread into nearby healthy gum. Mrs H complained to the Practice in January 2021.

12. 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. We have spoken with Mrs H to understand the reasons why she could not come to us sooner. We have also considered the time the Practice took to respond to Mrs H’s complaint.

13. Mrs H became aware of the problem on 22 December 2020. Mrs H should have therefore brought the complaint to us by 22 December 2021.

14. Mrs H submitted the complaint to us on 30 December 2021. Therefore, Mrs H’s complaint is out of time. We considered Mrs H’s reasons.

Time taken for the Practice to reply to the complaint

January 2021 to September 2021

15. Mrs H complained to the Practice in January 2021.

16. The complaint handling took from 2 January to 8 September.

17. During this period Mrs H went to the Practice many times. But Mrs H was aware from the Practice’s responses that the next step would be to bring the complaint to us. It directed her to us on 28 January, 23 February, 28 May and 26 August 2021. She chose to continue with the Practice and went back to go over issues which she felt were not being resolved.

18. While Mrs H was free to choose to go back to the Practice, and we do not criticise her for doing so, we think any disagreements between Mrs H and the Practice were unlikely to be resolved by repeated contact. The Practice’s later responses were largely the same as its earlier ones although with a little more detail. Mrs H did not submit the complaint to us until three months after the Practice’s final response.

September 2021 to December 2021

19. The main delay happened during this time when Mrs H did not escalate or try to progress the complaint. We asked Mrs H why there was a three-month delay in bringing the complaint to us.

20. Mrs H said she thought she had half a year after getting the final response to submit the complaint. We do not know where Mrs H got that information. But we note our website has information readily available about our process and time limits. The Practice also referred her to us continuously during its complaint handling.

21. Mrs H further stated she was very busy due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to understand this further, we asked Mrs H to clarify what made her busy during this time. She responded very broadly mentioning COVID-19 had affected her health, finances, living and school duties.

22. We understand people go through difficult times. We asked her to explain what was stopping her from submitting or progressing the complaint sooner. We wanted to understand this to decide if there are good reasons to set our time limit to one side.

23. Unfortunately, Mrs H declined to give us any further information. Mrs H did not identify any specific barrier which was stopping her from bringing the complaint to us sooner.

Conclusion

24. We recognise Mrs H had an extremely difficult time. Mrs H brought a complaint to the Practice quickly after having reason to complain. Once Mrs H received a final response from the Practice, she did not quickly bring her complaint to us. The complaint was finally sent to us outside of our time limit.

25. Some of the delay in bringing the complaint to us is justified as the complaint handling did take some time. However, the Practice did direct Mrs H to us showing this would be the next step if she was still unhappy with the Practice’s responses.

26. Mrs H kept returning to the Practice with similar points. At this time, it would be reasonable to say Mrs H should have then brought the complaint to us, as she was not progressing the complaint with the Practice.

27. We do not think the reasons Mrs H gave us show there was a serious barrier which stopped her from complaining to us sooner. Therefore, we will not consider the complaint further. We appreciate this decision will not be what Mrs H was hoping for.

28. We are very sorry to hear about how upset Mrs H has been. It is clear it has been a very difficult period, and we understand how much this complaint means to her. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons why we will not be considering the complaint further.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs H’s complaint about a dental practice in the Redbridge area (the Practice). After considering the relevant information, we have seen that the complaint falls outside of our 12-month time limit. We recognise Mrs H was trying to resolve the complaint with the Practice. However, we do not think this is what led the complaint to fall outside our time limit.

2. We considered the reasons Mrs H gave for the time it took to bring her complaint to us. We have decided the reasons are not enough for us to set our time limit to one side. For this reason, we will not consider the complaint further.

3. We appreciate the time Mrs H committed to making this complaint and recognise this decision will be disappointing. We explain the reasons for our decision in this statement.