NHS England

4. Miss O complains that NHS England failed to promptly allocate her son, N, a new orthodontist practice after his original stopped providing NHS treatment in May 2022.

5. She says the urgency of the issue meant she had no choice but to obtain private treatment at a cost of £1,500. This has placed her into financial hardship and has had a knock on affect which continues to the present day. Miss O explains that N experiences anxiety and distress around dental treatment and that the ongoing uncertainty heightened this. She also says she has encountered her own upset and worry as she was not only trying to make sure N was assigned a new practice, she also had to manage his concerns about this.

6. Miss O would like NHS England to provide her with a refund of the private costs she incurred. She would also like it to apologise and compensate her and N for its failings.

7. N had a brace fitted on 28 April 2022. The orthodontist practice which did this explained that it was stopping providing NHS services and that NHS England would get in touch with Miss O before N’s next appointment (in six to eight weeks’ time) was due to tell her where he would be moved to.

8. By 1 July, Miss O had not heard anything from NHS England. The original timescale had elapsed and N had a tooth pressing on the brace so she contacted it to express her concern. It provided a leaflet outlining the process in response to this. NHS England then told Miss O on 5 July that she would get a letter within the next one to two weeks confirming details of N’s new orthodontist.

9. Miss O contacted NHS England on 8 July after one of the wires on N’s brace broke. She had not heard anything about his new provider by this point. It does not seem NHS England responded to this contact, other than to provide her with details of its complaints process on 12 July. She made a formal complaint accordingly, which NHS England acknowledged on 21 July.

10. Miss O sent NHS England a further email on 19 July because the two weeks referred to on 1 July had passed and she had not heard anything further. Again, it does not seem NHS England responded to this which led to her chasing this on 2 August. It replied to this email the same day and told her it had no more information to give her.

11. NHS England responded to Miss O’s complaint on 5 September 2022 and told her that, at that time, it was not able to tell her who N’s new orthodontist practice would be. It said that it would contact as her ‘as soon as a new orthodontic provider [was] confirmed’ and invited her to contact it again if she had not heard from it by 30 September. NHS England also told Miss O that the reimbursement of private medical care was outside the remit of the complaint process and suggested she contact a legal team to help her claim these costs.

12. Miss O wrote to her MP on 23 January 2023. She said she had still had no contact from a new orthodontist by this time. NHS England responded to Miss O’s MP on 14 March and said that N’s new orthodontist had not been in contact because Miss O had told it N had received private treatment and so it understood the referral was no longer needed.

14. Miss O complains that NHS England failed to promptly allocate her son, N, a new orthodontist practice after his original stopped providing NHS treatment in May 2022.

15. N had braces fitted by the NHS in April 2022. He still had no new practice allocated to him as of January 2023.

16. Miss O explains that she felt she had no option but to have N treated privately. This cost £1,500 – a one-off upfront payment to cover the remaining treatment N would need up to the point his braces were ready to be removed.

17. She believed this to be the only available course of action because, amongst other things, N had a tooth pressing on the brace which was causing pain. It was clear this was a time sensitive matter.

18. By the time Miss O engaged a private orthodontist to complete N’s treatment, she had been in contact with NHS England multiple times. It had given her more than one timescale for it to confirm N’s new orthodontic practice which had passed without having been done.

19. Miss O explains that having to pay for the private treatment caused her financial hardship. Both her and N have also experienced emotional distress as a result of NHS England’s delays.

20. Having discussed this case with NHS England it has agreed to resolve the complaint in line with the other cases we have already considered about this same issue. It has confirmed it will provide a refund of the £1,500 private treatment costs Miss O incurred. It will also apologise to Miss O and N for its delays and the impact of these and pay each of them £450 (a total of £900) to recognise this. Miss O has confirmed her grateful acceptance of this remedy.

21. We welcome NHS England’s consideration of this case and its agreement to provide this remedy. This allows Miss O and N to bring this upsetting complaint to a quicker end than would otherwise have been the case.

1. We have carefully considered Miss O’s complaint about NHS England. We were sorry to hear how difficult it was for her to try and obtain a new orthodontist for her son. It is clear this was a stressful and upsetting time for both Miss O and N.

2. We discussed the matter with NHS England and gave it the opportunity to consider this case alongside other complaints about the same issue we have previously made decisions about. Having done so, it has agreed to apologise to Miss O for its delays, provide a refund of the £1,500 private orthodontist costs she incurred and to make consolatory payments of £450 to both her and N (£900 in total).

3. Miss O confirms she is satisfied that this resolves the complaint. As we agree, we have closed our file accordingly.