Terms & Conditions

Welcome to Space Dental. These Terms and Conditions (“the Terms”) set out the basis on which we provide dental care, treatment and related services to you. They apply to all patients of Space Dental and form part of the agreement between you and us. Please read them carefully. By booking an appointment, attending the practice or accepting a treatment plan, you agree to be bound by these Terms.

These Terms should be read together with our Privacy Notice, Complaints Procedure, Cancellation Policy and Refund Policy, each of which is available on request and on our website.

Who we are. “Space Dental”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Space DP Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 12325604), whose registered office is at No. 2 Silkwood Office Park, Fryers Way, Ossett, West Yorkshire, WF5 9TJ, trading as Space Dental. “You” and “your” refer to the patient, or where the patient is a child or a person lacking capacity, the parent, guardian or authorised representative responsible for them.

Our regulators. Our dentists and clinical team are registered with and regulated by the General Dental Council (GDC). Our practices are registered with and inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Space DP Limited is a credit broker, not a lender, and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), firm reference number 1012302.

In these Terms:

Appointments can be booked in person or by telephone. We will confirm your appointment and, where we hold your mobile number, we will normally send a reminder by text message in advance. Reminders are a courtesy; responsibility for attending remains with you, and the non-arrival of a reminder is not a reason for missing an appointment.

We may ask for a deposit to secure certain appointments, particularly longer treatment, cosmetic or implant sessions. Where a deposit is taken, it will be credited against the cost of your treatment provided you attend, or provided you cancel or reschedule within the notice period set out below. The deposit amount will be made clear to you at the time of booking.

Appointments are booked for a set length of time so that your clinician can treat you safely and without rushing. If you arrive late, it may not be possible to complete your planned treatment within the remaining time.

Grace period. If you arrive within 10 minutes of your appointment time, we will do our best to see you, although your appointment may need to be shortened so that we do not delay other patients.

Arrival more than 10 minutes late. If you arrive more than 10 minutes late, we may not be able to see you. In that case we will treat the appointment as a missed appointment (see section 3.5) and ask you to rebook. Whether we can still see you is at the clinician’s discretion and depends on the type of treatment booked and the remaining time available.

If treatment has to be shortened or rebooked because of late arrival, any deposit or appointment fee already paid may be retained to reflect the clinical time reserved for you.

We understand that circumstances change. If you need to cancel or rearrange, we ask for at least 48 hours’ notice for all appointments, so that we can offer your slot to another patient.

Notice can be given by telephone, email or in person during opening hours. Where the 48-hour period would fall on a weekend or bank holiday, please contact us on the last working day beforehand.

If you miss an appointment without notice (a “no-show”), or cancel or rearrange with less than 48 hours’ notice, we may charge a fee to reflect the clinical time and resources reserved for you that we were unable to reallocate. The fee is £60 for each 30 minutes of appointment time that was reserved. Where a deposit has been paid, the charge may be taken from that deposit.

Repeated missed appointments may, at our discretion and after we have discussed it with you, result in us being unable to continue offering you care, or asking for payment in advance for future appointments. We will always tell you before taking such a step.

Before treatment begins, your clinician will discuss the proposed treatment, reasonable alternatives, the benefits and risks, and the likely cost. For anything beyond a routine examination we will normally provide a written Treatment Plan and estimate. We will not begin treatment without your informed consent.

An estimate is based on the information available at the time of your assessment. Occasionally, the treatment needed may change once work is under way (for example, if additional decay or a complication is found). If your treatment or its cost is likely to change materially, we will stop and discuss this with you, and obtain your consent, before continuing wherever it is clinically safe to do so.

Dentistry is not an exact science and individual results can vary depending on factors including your oral health, healing and aftercare. We cannot and do not guarantee a particular clinical outcome, although we will always provide care that meets professional standards.

Our current fees are available at the practice and on our website. Fees may change from time to time, but the price quoted in your Treatment Plan will be honoured for the period stated in that plan.

Payment is due as set out in your Treatment Plan. Unless agreed otherwise, payment for each stage of treatment is due on or before the day of that appointment. We accept the payment methods displayed at the practice. Where treatment is funded by a Finance Agreement, section 6 applies.

If an account remains unpaid after we have asked you to settle it, we may suspend further non-urgent treatment and, as a last resort, recover the debt through a collection agency or the courts. We will always contact you first to try to resolve any difficulty.

To help spread the cost of treatment, we can introduce you to a finance provider. Space DP Limited is a credit broker, not a lender, and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm reference number 1012302). Finance is subject to status and to the lender’s approval, and is provided under a separate agreement between you and the lender.

Your right to withdraw or cancel. A Finance Agreement is a regulated credit agreement. You have a legal right to withdraw from it within 14 days, beginning the day after the agreement is made (or the day you receive a copy of it, if later), under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Approval of finance does not, by itself, remove that right or oblige you to proceed with treatment.

Proceeding with treatment. Putting finance in place allows us to schedule and prepare for your treatment. If you decide to go ahead, your treatment will proceed in line with your Treatment Plan. If you decide not to proceed, please tell us as soon as possible so that we can release your appointment and, where applicable, help you cancel the Finance Agreement with the lender within the withdrawal period.

If you cancel after treatment has begun, the cancellation charges in section 7 apply, and you remain responsible for any amounts properly due to the lender under the terms of your Finance Agreement. Please read your Finance Agreement carefully, as it governs your relationship with the lender.

Where you agree a Treatment Plan away from the practice or at a distance (for example online or by telephone), you may have the right to cancel within 14 days under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. If you ask us in writing to begin treatment within that 14-day period and we do so, you may be asked to pay for the treatment actually provided up to the point you cancel.

You may cancel a course of treatment at any time by telling us in writing. Where treatment has already begun, or where appointments, laboratory work or materials specific to you have been arranged, we will charge only for:

Any cancellation charge will reflect our reasonable costs and losses and will be explained to you in writing. A minimum cancellation charge of £200 applies, reflecting the clinical time, planning and resources committed to your treatment; where the costs and losses set out above exceed £200, the higher amount will apply. Any sums you have paid that exceed the charge will be refunded to you in line with our Refund Policy.

We want you to be happy with your treatment. Where we offer a guarantee on specific treatments (for example certain cosmetic or restorative work), the scope, length and conditions of that guarantee will be set out in your Treatment Plan or provided separately.

Any guarantee is conditional on you following the aftercare advice given to you, attending recommended review and maintenance appointments (such as hygiene visits), and maintaining good oral hygiene. Guarantees do not cover damage caused by accident, trauma, failure to follow aftercare, smoking where advised against, or treatment subsequently carried out by another provider.

Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, including the right to services carried out with reasonable care and skill.

We take the confidentiality and security of your information seriously and handle it in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and our Privacy Notice. Your clinical records, including notes, photographs, intraoral scans and X-rays, form part of your personal data.

We retain your dental records, including digital scans and radiographs, for the periods recommended by professional and information-governance guidance. For adults this is normally at least 11 years from the date of your last completed course of treatment. For children, we retain records until their 25th birthday, or for 11 years, whichever is the longer. We will not delete clinical records, including scans and X-rays, before the end of the applicable retention period.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, including your scans and X-rays. We will provide this free of charge and within one month of your request, as required by the UK GDPR. We may only charge a reasonable fee, or extend the time, if a request is manifestly unfounded, excessive, or repetitive — for example, where you ask for further copies of the same records. If a fee applies in those limited circumstances, we will explain it to you before proceeding.

To make a request, please contact us in writing using the details at the end of these Terms. To protect your information, we may ask you to verify your identity before we release any records.

Where you ask for a copy of intraoral scans, we will normally provide these in a standard format (such as STL) suitable for use by most dental professionals and laboratories. It is your responsibility to check that your chosen provider can accept the format supplied; we are happy to discuss the format with you or your new provider beforehand.

Files will only be released to you, or to a recipient you have authorised in writing, and will be transferred securely in line with our Privacy Notice.

To help us care for you safely, we ask that you:

We are committed to providing a safe environment for our patients and staff. We do not tolerate abusive, threatening or violent behaviour, and we reserve the right to decline or discontinue care in such circumstances.

Patients under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or other responsible adult who can give consent to treatment. We may ask for evidence of parental responsibility. Where a patient lacks capacity to consent, we will act in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and in the patient’s best interests.

We carry professional indemnity and public liability cover, as required of dental professionals. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.

Subject to that, we are not liable for any loss or damage that is not a foreseeable result of our breach, or that arises from your failure to follow clinical or aftercare advice, or from information you did not disclose to us. Our liability for any matter relating to the services is limited to the amount paid for the relevant treatment, except where the law provides otherwise.

We aim to provide a high standard of care, but if something falls short we want to hear about it. Please raise any concern with a member of our team or our Practice Manager, who will deal with it under our Complaints Procedure, a copy of which is available on request and on our website.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint, you may be able to refer it to an independent body, such as the Dental Complaints Service for private dental care, or the General Dental Council. We will provide the relevant contact details as part of our complaints response.

Changes to these Terms. We may update these Terms from time to time, for example to reflect changes in the law or our practice. The version in force at the date of your Treatment Plan or appointment applies to that treatment. The current version is always available at the practice and on our website.

 

If a term is unenforceable. If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force.

Governing law. These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and any dispute will be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Registered office: No. 2 Silkwood Office Park, Fryers Way, Ossett, West Yorkshire, WF5 9TJ

Telephone: 01924 565955

Company number: 12325604  •  FCA firm reference number: 1012302