Dental practice review reply writer: a reply that keeps patient confidentiality, answers the point and moves it to the complaints procedure

A bad review of a dental practice is read by every patient who searches the practice's name, and the reply is read just as closely. The instinct is to set the record straight. The duty is confidentiality, and the two conflict. This writer produces a reply that answers the point without disclosing anything about the reviewer's care.

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Dental practice review reply writer: a reply that keeps patient confidentiality, answers the point and moves it to the complaints procedure

PlatformGoogleNHS websiteFacebookTrustpilot Stars12345 Reviewer name as shown What it is aboutWaiting time or running lateCost or a billHow they were spoken toThe treatment itself or painGetting an appointmentPraise What has changed, in one line How to reach the practice manager Signed

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The disclosure problem

Confidentiality does not need a name to be breached. "You were seen on the 14th and the fee was explained before your crown" confirms that the reviewer is a patient, when they attended, what treatment they had and what they paid. Even "I'm sorry your appointment ran late" confirms an appointment. The GDC's principle 4 applies to a public reply as it does to a letter, and the practice cannot tell who else can identify the reviewer from their display name.

So the reply answers in the reviewer's own terms. If they wrote about waiting, the reply is sorry about the waiting; it does not say "your appointment". It does not say "our records show". It does not say whether the practice recognises the person at all.

The four moves

Thank, by the name shown. Name the point as they put it, and say it is not what the practice wants anyone to experience. Say what changed, if something did: "we have added ten-minute buffers to the morning book". Move the detail offline to the practice manager by name and number, and mention the complaints procedure, which the GDC requires every practice to have, to make available and to tell patients about (principle 5). Under 100 words.

Reviews about treatment

Never get a clinical answer in public. The reply says the practice cannot discuss any individual's care here, that it would like to understand what happened, and how to reach the manager and the procedure. Nothing about the treatment, the clinician or the outcome. A GDC registrant reads the reply before it is posted, because a treatment review is one step from a complaint and the complaint's file starts with the reply.

Reviews that are already complaints

If the reviewer is in the complaints procedure, the reply says only that the practice is dealing with the matter directly. Anything more is a second channel for a process that has one.

Praise

Short, specific, no marketing, and nothing the reviewer did not say first: if they named the hygienist, the reply can thank the hygienist; if they did not, it does not. No request to recommend the practice to friends.

Who posts and when

The practice manager posts, within two working days, and never the clinician named in the review. A reply posted in anger an hour after the review is the one that gets quoted; a reply after a fortnight reads as indifference. Reviews that make allegations about a named member of staff are not answered in the reply beyond the standard wording; the allegation goes into the complaints procedure, and the staff member is told the same day.

The incentive rule

Never offer a refund, a discount or a free appointment in exchange for changing or removing a review. The fake and incentivised review rules in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 have applied since 6 April 2025, and a dental practice is a trader for those purposes. A patient who posts, is refunded and edits the review is a story the regulator has heard.

In the practice

An AI Reviews Clerk set up by Overlyft lists every new review across Google, the NHS website, Facebook and Trustpilot each morning, drafts a reply in this shape for each, flags any about treatment for a registrant to read, and puts the drafts in the practice manager's mailbox to post. It never posts. It keeps a monthly theme count (waiting, cost, booking, manner, treatment) for the practice meeting, which is where the complaints procedure and the FTA figures are read together. Regulated work; not legal advice.