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Complaints Procedure

CODE OF PRACTICE FOR HANDLING PATIENT COMPLAINTS

We want our service to meet your expectations.

  1. All of your feedback is important to us.
  2. We want to make it easy for you to raise a concern or complain, if you need to.
  3. We follow a complaints procedure and keep you informed.
  4. We will try to answer all your questions and any concerns you raise.
  5. We want you to have a positive experience of making a complaint.
  6. Your feedback helps us to improve our service.

Making a complaint

If you have a concern regarding our service, we would encourage you to let someone at the Practice know about the problem so that they can try to sort it out immediately. Complaints may be made to any member of staff – receptionists, clinical or administrative staff. If the matter is of such nature that it requires a more immediate response, we will arrange for a senior member of the dental team to deal with it.

If immediate resolution is not possible, your complaint will be passed to the practice Complaints Manager, Jayne Magee who is also responsible for ensuring compliance with our complaints procedure.

Our Complaints Manager is usually available in the Practice from Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm. If Jayne is not available, we will take brief details of your complaint in a Patient Complaint Form and will arrange a convenient time for her to contact you. You will be given a copy of the Form.

If you prefer to contact Jayne directly to make a complaint or simply let us know how we could have done better, she can be contacted in any of the following ways:

If your complaint is about the Complaints Manager, it will be passed to the Practice Principal, Nigel Magee who will follow this Code.

Complaints about NHS treatment: It is recommended that a complaint should be made within 6 months of the cause or when the cause was first noticed (but within 12 months of the date of the cause).

Complaint about your dental treatment or associated charges: If a complaint is about any aspect of clinical care or associated charges, we will usually ask the dentist concerned to contact you as soon as possible, unless you do not want this.

Local Resolution

We aim to handle your complaint efficiently and sympathetically from the outset may encourage early resolution and avoid the need for a formal complaint process, involving investigation and formal reports.

What happens next

a) Acknowledgment: Our Complaints Manager will acknowledge your complaint in writing within 2 working days and will send you a copy of this Code of Practice. At any stage a meeting can be arranged to discuss your complaint when you may be accompanied by a relative, friend or someone from the Patient and Client Council.

b) Investigation: We will investigate your complaint thoroughly and if there is to be any delay we will let you know the reason for this and when you may expect to receive a detailed reply. If further details are needed from you a meeting may be useful and the outcome of the meeting will be confirmed in writing to you.

Your complaint will be treated confidentially, but if the investigation requires your records to be disclosed to a person other than a member of our practice or to our professional indemnifier(s) or our legal representative(s), we will inform you of this and ask for your written consent to disclose.

c) Written Response: Before providing our response, we will invite you to a meeting to discuss the findings of our investigation. Please feel free to bring a relative or friend along or someone from the Patient and Client Council.

Our Complaints Manager will normally provide you with a full written response within 10 working days, unless you have told us that you do not wish for further communication. She will explain how each complaint was considered, the conclusions, details of any necessary remedial action we have taken and whether further preventative action is needed.

The HSC Complaints Procedure

If you do not wish to approach us directly, you may wish to contact the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) of the Department of Health for advice and assistance. The Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) Complaints Team deals with complaints about care or treatment, or about issues relating to the provision of health and social care. Complaints about private care and treatment or service; which includes private dental care are not dealt with by the SPPG.

The SPPG Complaints Team may act as ‘Honest Broker’.  Within this capacity the SPPG Complaints Team will;

  • act as an intermediary between you and the Practice;
  • where appropriate make arrangements for independent expert advice, conciliation, lay person assistance; and
  • ensure you are kept informed about the progress of your complaint.

Honest Broker is not an alternative to local resolution, nor is it an opportunity for the SPPG Complaints Team to take over investigation.  It is about facilitating communications and building relationships between the Practice and the complainant.  You or our Practice can ask the SPPG Complaints Team to act in this role at any point in the complaints process; however agreement must be sought from both parties.

The SPPG Complaints Team

Complaints Department
12-22 Linenhall Street,
Belfast
BT2 8BS

If you have a complaint concerning our service, please contact the SPPG Complaints Team for advice and assistance.  You may do this by:

Follow-Up

We will write to you within 2 weeks of the date of our written response to :

  • ensure that you have received the response
  • advise that our internal complaints process is complete
  • that should you still be dissatisfied with our response or require further clarity, to please contact Jayne, if possible within four weeks of our written response. Jayne will do her best to resolve your concerns

If you are still dissatisfied, you can ask the following to investigate your complaint :

Complaints about NHS treatment

The SPPG Complaints Team
Complaints Department
12-22 Linenhall Street,
Belfast
BT2 8BS

Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman
Progressive House
33 Wellington Place,
Belfast, BT1 6HN

Although you have the right to approach the Ombudsman at any time (they will not usually take on a case unless it has first been through the complaints procedure).

Complaints about private treatment

Dental Complaints Service
37 Wimpole Street
London, W1G 8DQ

Concerns about our services

RQIA’s Guidance Team
RQIA, James House,
2-4 Cromac Avenue, Belfast, BT7 2JA

Complaints about professional misconduct

General Dental Council
37 Wimpole Street,
London, W1M 8DQ

Patient and Client Council

Throughout the complaints investigation you also have a right to seek the help of the Patient and Client Council. The Council is an independent body set up to represent your interest in health and social care. It is willing to assist you at any stage of your complaint by providing advice and support.

The Patient and Client Council
5th floor, 14-16 Great Victoria Street
Belfast, BT2 7BA

Records: We keep securely full and comprehensive records of all complaints, investigations and responses, and keep them separate to the patient’s clinical records. Communications will be marked “private and confidential” or “personal” and sent first class. We will only respond by email if you have first emailed us and confirmed that you are happy to receive email responses.

Other Matters

External Reporting by us:

  • Anonymised copies of each NHS written complaint received and responses provided must be sent to the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) Complaints Team within 3 working days of the written response being issued to the complainant
  • A statement containing a summary of NHS and private complaints made during the preceding 15 months and the action taken in response must be sent toThe Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority, 7th Floor Victoria House, 15-27 Gloucester Street, Belfast, BT1 4LS

Legal action

Even if your initial communication is through a solicitor’s letter, we will not infer that you have decided to take legal action, but we still reserve the right to seek independent legal and/or professional indemnity advice. If you threaten legal action or issue a court claim against us, the complaint process will cease and you will be advised of this in writing. We will also seek independent legal and/or professional indemnity advice.

Thank you.