NHS England

2. Mr I complains that NHSE did not take his complaint about his dental practice seriously. He also complains that NHSE delayed responding to him. He says he has been left in ongoing pain because the matter has not been resolved and this has left him feeling stressed and anxious. He wants an apology, service improvements and a financial payment.

3. Mr I went to NHSE with concerns about his dental practice on 30 October 2022. NHSE finalised the complaints process and sent a response to him on 2 March 2023.

6. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. If we see evidence of this, we look at whether there are signs the events complained about had a negative effect, that the organisation has not put right.

7. Mr I complains NHSE did not take the complaint he made to it about his dental practice seriously. He also says he experienced delays. He told us he made a complaint to NHSE about his dental practice on 30 October 2022 and did not get a final response to this until 2 March 2023.

8. NHSE’s complaints policy says it aims to respond to a complaint within 40 working days. If it has not provided a response within six months, it will write to the person to explain the reasons for the delay and say when they can expect to get the response.

9. We have seen that Mr I’s complaint was not responded to within 40 days, it took 123 days in total. But, NHSE did respond to the complaint within the maximum time of six months.

10. We have seen evidence that during this time NHSE was working on the complaint and delays were due to the dental practice’s response time. We have also seen that during this time, NHSE advised Mr I of the delays and the reasons for these. He was also given timescales for when to expect a full response.

11. The final response was in line with the complaints policy and included an explanation of how the complaint had been considered and what the two responses from the dental practice said.

12. For these reasons, we think NHSE acted in line with its complaints policy. We do not think NHSE got anything wrong when handling Mr I’s complaint and we are not taking any further action for this reason.

13. We understand from what Mr I has told us that his whole experience has had a negative impact on his mental health. We are sorry to hear this. We hope we have clearly explained our decision and given Mr I some reassurance that NHSE followed its policy.

14. We regret any further upset our decision may cause.

1. We have carefully considered Mr I’s complaint about NHS England (NHSE). We are sorry to hear about his experience. We recognise the difficult and stressful time he has gone through. We understand he is concerned that NHSE did not manage his complaint correctly. We are not taking further action because we do not think NHSE did anything wrong. We explain our decision in detail below.