Norfolk and Norwich Section - Complaints - stop worrying and start enjoying dentistry

What to expect

Join the friendly Norfolk and Norwich Section team for a practical and reassuring session with GDP and BDA Head of Indemnity, Len D’Cruz, designed to help you stop worrying about complaints and start managing them with confidence. This lecture will unpack the real triggers behind patient complaints, explore what patients are truly seeking when they raise concerns, and highlight how trust, empathy and strong communication skills can dramatically reduce the likelihood of issues escalating.

You’ll also gain a clear, structured system for handling and auditing complaints within your practice, helping you strengthen team responses, protect professional relationships, and foster a more positive, proactive patient‑care environment.

With practical examples and actionable guidance, this is an evening that will leave you feeling more in control - and far less concerned - about complaints.

Who should attend

This event is ideal for GDPs, dental team members, practice managers, FDs and students (special £10 rate), and anyone involved in patient communication or complaint handling within a dental practice.

Timings

18:30 Registration and refreshments with a buffet meal

19:00 Lecture start - Len D’Cruz

20:30 End of lectures and networking

21:00 Close

Learning objectives

• Reviewing the triggers for patient complaints
• Reflecting on what patients want from their complaints
• Understanding the importance of trust, empathy and communication skills in limiting complaints
• Considering a system on how complaints can be managed.

Development outcomes

A and D

Meet the speaker

Len qualified from the Royal London Hospital in 1989 and did his vocational training at Whipps Cross.

After an associateship in Hertfordshire he bought into his practice in Woodford Green as an expense sharing partner a year later and eventually took over the practice with his wife Anne who is also a dentist. He has done clinical assistantships in Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics.

Len has been a Foundation trainer/Education supervisor for the London Deanery for a number of years and the practice is a Gold BDA Good Practice Scheme member.

It is now a seven surgery practice and the practice is also part of the NHS new contract pilots/prototypes since September 2011.

Len was an Examiner for the Faculty of General Dental Practitioners for the MJDF exam and for the Overseas Registration Exam (ORE). He completed a Masters in Law at Cardiff in 2003 and the Certificate in Practice Appraisal from the FGDP in 2004. He completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education from the University of Westminster in 2009 and has completed his FGDP Mentoring Certificate in 2012. He was a Director of the BDA (PEC member) from 2015-2019). He has recently completed the Certificate in Insurance from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CertCii).

He currently splits his time between clinical general dental practice, and working with the BDA as Head of BDA Indemnity, having worked at Dental Protection Ltd for 21 years. He is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire for the MA in Dental Law and Ethics. He is module lecturer on the Advanced Minimally Invasive Dentistry MSc at Kings College.

He has published “Legal Aspects of General Dental Practice” (Elsevier/Churchill Livingstone) and co-authored “Understanding NHS Dentistry” with Raj Rattan MBE and Michael Watson. He writes and lectures regularly on dento-legal issues and has published chapters on medical legal aspects in widely read texts (The Principles of Endodontics OUP, Odell’s Clinical Problem Solving in Dentistry 4th Edition Elsevier 2020).

His hobbies include photography, reading fiction and non fiction and trying to keep fit. He has been awarded a Licentiateship from the Royal Photographic Society (LRPS).