Complaints
Ham Dental Practice Complaints Handling Policy and Procedure
If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the dentists or any of the staff working in this practice, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure. Our complaint system adheres to national criteria.
How to Complain
We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible – ideally, within a matter of days or at most a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened most easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:
• within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem; or
• within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months
of the incident.
Complaints about the treatment you received should be made to the dentist who normally sees you. Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment for in order to discuss your concerns. If a patient complains in writing a letter or email it will be passed on immediately to Joe Narcisi. He, or a senior member of the practice team will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will help if you are as clear as possible about your complaint.
What We Shall Do
We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and give you our code of practice policy. We aim to have looked into a complaint within 10 working days of the date when you raised it with us. If we are unable to investigate the complaint in 10 working days we will notify the patient, giving the reasons for the delay and a likely period within which the investigation will be completed. We shall then be in a position to give you an explanation, or offer a meeting with those involved.
In investigating your complaint, we shall aim to:
• Find out what happened and what went wrong
• Enable you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this;
• Ensure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate;
• We will confirm the decision about the complaint in writing immediately after completing the investigation.
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again.
Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else
Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have the permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless that are incapable of providing this because of physical or mental illness or are a child under 16 years.
Complaining to Dental Complaints Service
We hope that, if you have a problem, you will make use of our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will provide the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. However, this does not affect your right to complain to the Dental Complaints Service, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.
If you wish for further advice, you should contact:
Dental Complaints Service (Private patients)
37 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8DQ .
E-mail: info@dentalcomplaints.org.uk Tel. 020 8253 0800
NHS England (NHS patients)
PO Box 16738, Redditch, B97 9PT
E-mail; england.contactus@nhs.net Tel. 0300 311 2233
You may also like to contact the General Dental Council for more advice :
General Dental Council
37 Wimpole Street
London
W1G 8DQ
E-mail: Complaints@gdc-uk.org Tel. 020 7167 6000