Dealing with complaints is not often viewed as a positive experience, but with correct procedures in place there is no need to fear them.

Every dental care professional has a responsibility to deal properly and professionally with complaints. But what does ‘properly and professionally’ mean in practice?

The General Dental Council is currently consulting on exactly this issue. Without prejudging the consultation's outcome, the following suggestions should prove helpful. It is important that all of the team know how to deal effectively with a complaint.

GDC guidance

The GDC's guidance on standards for DCPs sets out six main principles that you should apply to all aspects of your work. The very first of these concerns the patient: ‘Put patients' interests first and act to protect them’.

The guidance goes on:

‘Give patients who make a complaint about the care or treatment they have received a helpful response at the appropriate time. Respect the patient's right to complain. Make sure that there is an effective complaints procedure where you work and follow it at all times. Co-operate with any formal inquiry into the treatment of a patient.’

A positive response

Put yourself in the patient's position. Have you ever noted your concern about a purchase or service only to be told, ‘Nobody's ever complained about that before’? This response doesn't respect your right to complain.

Try not to adopt a defensive attitude to complaints in your practice. Complaints are a very important aspect of your patient relationship and successful practices build on their relationship with patients.

Consider why people complain. Complaints arise when people don't get the service they expect. As well as clinical issues, patients may complain about service issues, such as lack of courtesy or poor communication. Handling complaints well involves showing politeness and consideration, listening carefully to patients, and involving them fully in the process of resolving their complaint. That process should be as swift as possible. Complaints are often urgent, and you should resolve a complaint as quickly and as smoothly as possible, before it has a chance to grow.

Handling complaints well involves showing politeness and consideration, listening carefully to patients, and involving them fully in the process of resolving their complaint.

Let patients know who to contact if they have a problem with the service you have provided, or the service provided by your practice. It is a good idea to nominate a named individual to act as complaints manager.

Complaints procedure

A good complaints procedure is part of your approach to patient care. Make sure all staff and patients know about it. If you are an employer and/or manage a team, provide training in how to deal with patients' concerns and complaints and how to apologise and offer practical solutions. Make sure, too, that you inform patients about the NHS complaints scheme, and (when it arrives) the GDC's private patients' Dental Complaints Service. Hopefully a patient will put his or her complaint to you first, but some patients find putting their concern to a third party is much easier. If they do this then they will be encouraged to come to you for help.

A complaints procedure need not be complicated – in fact, a good procedure is simple. But it should recognise that:

  • Complaints can be verbal or written and can be about any aspect of the service you provide.

  • Patients complain because their expectations of a good level of service have not been met. Often, a failure of communications is to blame when a patient's expectations do not match yours.

  • A well-handled complaint will ensure that your relationship with the patient is not only maintained, but potentially improved too.

  • Speed is a priority when handling complaints: the longer the complaint remains unresolved, the more irritated patients may get.

If a complaints procedure is to achieve all the above, then it must:

  • Be visible to patients

  • Be easy for patients to access

  • Be simple to use

  • Allow you to deal with complaints quickly

  • Allow you to investigate complaints in a full and fair way

  • Respect patient confidentiality

  • Be clearly written

  • Feed service improvement information to your practice management.

Make sure the information you give to patients about your complaints handling procedures includes a description of the timescales and stages involved.

Practical steps

...view effective complaint handling as a way of generating new, and protecting existing, business.

If you get a complaint from a patient, deal with it calmly and in line with your complaints procedure. Offer an apology and a practical solution where appropriate: remember, an apology is not an admission of liability. Don't treat complaints as possible negligence cases, but do alert your dental defence organisation as soon as possible after receiving a serious complaint, so that the organisation can assist you, if necessary, in resolving it effectively.

If the complaint cannot be immediately resolved, you should normally send an acknowledgement letter within two working days of receiving the complaint. Provide a copy of your complaints procedure at the same time. If you need time to investigate a complaint, let your patient know – in your acknowledgement letter, tell him or her when they will hear from you.

You should normally respond to a complaint in writing or by telephone as soon as you receive it, if possible, and certainly no later than 10 working days after the complaint is made, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

If there are exceptional circumstances, then update your patient with the progress of the investigation at regular intervals of no more than 10 working days.

At the end of your investigation, send your patient a letter or invite them in for a discussion to explain:

(a) what you have decided; and

(b) any practical solutions you are prepared to offer.

Make sure you deal with all the points raised in a complaint and offer a suitable solution for each one at the same time. Apologise that something has gone wrong, as a way of showing personal concern and understanding. If a patient's complaint is justified, offer a fair solution. This may include offering to put things right at your own expense if you have made a mistake.

Of course, it may be that the patient is still dissatisfied. Patients have the right to take their complaint further: to the NHS complaints scheme, or the GDC's new Dental Complaints Service for private patients, which launches next year. But most complaints will be resolved as they should be – through your own ‘in house’ complaints procedure.

Do analyse complaints so that you can improve your services as a result. Reviewing a complaint can help to improve your service to patients generally. Many enterprises view effective complaint handling as a way of generating new, and protecting existing, business. There is no reason why this shouldn't be true for dentistry.

A happy patient is an excellent ambassador for your practice. Referrals from existing customers are the most powerful form of promotion a practice can enjoy. Patients who are happy with the way their concerns have been dealt with can become great advocates for your business.

Gordon Miles is Director of the Dental Complaints Service

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