A dental practice in the Lewisham area

3. Ms A complains about the care and treatment she had from the Practice on 30 December 2022. Ms A says the Practice was negligent when giving anaesthetic (pain relief) during a root canal procedure. Ms A also says the Practice did not offer her appropriate aftercare.

4. Ms A says she has been left unable to swallow. Ms A says she also had unnecessary pain and distress.

5. Ms A would like financial compensation of between £3,000 and £10,000.

7. The law says we cannot investigate a complaint if the complainant could resolve it by taking legal action, unless it would be unreasonable for them to do this.

8. Ms A says the care and treatment she had from the Trust fell short of expected standards and this led to physical and emotional harm.

9. Ms A wants a large financial payment. Ms A could make a clinical negligence claim. We understand why Ms A came to us first with her complaint. We cannot investigate a complaint if the person could take legal action to address their concerns.

10. We have not seen any barriers or reasons that would stop Ms A from speaking to a solicitor about her complaint.

11. If Ms A explores the legal route in full and is not able to use it, she may come back to us and we could consider her complaint again. The law says we can only consider complaints that have been brought to us within 12 months of the person becoming aware of the need to complain. If Ms A needs to come back to us after exploring legal action, she should do this without delay.

1. We have carefully considered Ms A’s complaint about a dental practice in the Lewisham area (the Practice).

2. We are sorry to hear about the circumstances that led her to come to us. We have considered Ms A’s complaint and have decided she could take legal action to resolve it.