Knights Dental Complaints policy

Policies

Complaints Policy and Procedures

KNIGHTS DENTAL

Knights Dental Complaints Policy and Procedure in our practice, we take complaints very seriously and ensure that all patients are pleased with their experience with our services. When patients complain, they are dealt with courteously and promptly to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the dentist or any of the staff at this practice, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria.

How to complain

We hope that most problems can be resolved easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out this way and you wish to make a complaint, we will respond to your complaint within three working days, enabling us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem.

The Complaints Lead for the practice is Paul Jones.

If a patient complains on the telephone or at the reception desk, we will listen to their complaint and offer to refer them to Practice manager. The staff member will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on. If we cannot arrange this within a reasonable period or the patient does not wish to wait to discuss the matter, arrangements will be made for someone to deal with it.

The letter will be passed on immediately to Practice manager if the patient complains in writing.

A complaint about clinical care or associated charges will generally be referred to the dentist unless the patient does not want this to happen.

What shall we do:

We shall acknowledge your complaint within three working days and aim to investigate it within 14 working days of the date you raised it with us. We shall then be able to offer you an explanation or a meeting with the people involved. When we investigate your complaint, we shall aim to:

Find out what happened and what went wrong

Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned if you would like this

Make sure you receive an apology where this is appropriate

Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again

Should a patient make a complaint or claim, we may need to provide information about the patient and their treatment to insurers, indemnifiers or legal advisers.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we strictly follow the rules of clinical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we must know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed unless they are incapable (because of physical and mental illness) of providing this.

Llais

Llais is an independent body which provides free and confidential complaints advocacy and support.

Llais

Third Floor

33-35 Cathedral Road

Cardiff

CF11 9HB

Details for local Llais support can be found: https://www.llaiswales.org/in-your-area

Complaining to your local Health Board

We hope that if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. This will give us the best chance of putting whatever has gone wrong right and an opportunity to improve our practice. This does not affect your right to approach NHS Wales if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or are dissatisfied with our investigation’s result.

If you prefer not to deal with the practice directly, contact the complaints manager at your Health Board instead. You’ll find contact details on the web pages below:

Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board – Contact Us/FOI

Aneurin Bevan Health Board – Putting Things Right: How to make a complaint

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board – Contact Us

Cardiff & Vale University Health Board – Complaints

Cwm Taf Health Board – Putting Things Right: How to make a complaint

Hywel Dda Health Board – Putting Things Right: Raising your concerns about the NHS

Powys Teaching Health Board – Raising a Concern

Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman

Millbank Tower Millbank,

London

SW1P 4QP

Telephone: 0345 015 4033