At West Hampstead Dental we are committed to providing high quality care for all our patients and will ensure that their representatives can seek advice, provide feedback, and make a complaint about any aspect of the service we provide.
We want our services to meet your expectations. If you have a concern or complaint about any aspects of our service, we want to know what mistakes we made and identify how we can improve to ensure that we meet your expectations in the future.
We will deal with complaints courteously and promptly and aim to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.
All members of the team are expected to understand and follow this policy when dealing with a patient complaint.
The Key Aspects of this Policy are:
That our patients know how to complain and are confident that their complaint will be taken seriously
We will investigate all complaints and will keep the patient informed of the findings of our investigation.
We will learn from any complaints, concerns, and feedback that we receive and use these as lessons to improve our service.
Information for Patients
If a patient wishes to make a complaint or register a concern about any aspects of our service, it should be made easy for them to do so. Our Code of Practice for Handling Patients complaints encourages patients to let us know when our service has not met their expectations and explains how we will investigate their complaint and keep them informed at every stage.
A full copy of the complaint’s procedure is available from reception or the practice manager.
The practice complaint(s) manager, Bindu Pisavadia is responsible for dealing with complaints received by the practice, unless immediate resolution is possible.
Acknowledgement
The Complaint Managers will acknowledge the complaint within 3 working days of receiving the complaint and enclose a copy of the practice’s Code of Practice for handling complaints. If there are going to be any delays acknowledging the complaint than the patient should be notified of this delay immediately.
At West Hampstead Dental we have adopted a No-Blame approach to complaints that we receive but recognise that all feedback provides an opportunity for us to develop and improve ourselves and the service we provide.
As soon as we have received and dealt with a complaint, we will ensure that all parties involved are given individual feedback. Where our investigations identify a need to improve or review our practice systems, a practice meeting will be put in place to discuss the complaint, its outcome, and suggestions for improvement.
Any agreed changes will be kept under review.
We will undertake ongoing monitoring of all complaints to identify trends and assess training requirement.
If you are not satisfied with the result of our investigation, you can take the matter with a relevant external organisation,
For complaints about NHS treatment:
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower, Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP
0345 015 4033
www.ombudsman.org.uk
For complaints about private treatment:
Dental Complaints Service
37 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8DQ