For those familiar with what I do, you may be bemused that I have an interest in complaints… or more precisely, helping people avoid them where possible.
I have been training and presenting about Complaint Handling for some time now and thought an update on what’s been happening in the joyful world of complaints in dentistry is due.
As most know there were new GDC complaint principles released in 2018.
The new principles being:
- All patient feedback is important to us
- We want to make it easy for you to raise a concern, or complain if you need to
- We follow a complaints procedure and keep you informed
- We will try to answer all your questions and concerns you raise
- We want you to have a positive experience of making a complaint
- Your feedback helps us to improve our service
What the GDC says:
“Ignoring a complaint will only make the patient angrier and may result in them raising their complaint with us. Often, a simple apology or an offer to put things right is all that patients want and the sooner you put things right, the better”.
We all receive a complaint about clinical administrative or general customer service at some time I’m sure, but it’s clear that complaints do seem more common than they were 20 years ago.
Do patients have higher expectations or know-how and where to complain?
Either way, it comes down generally to how we are responding to the complaints. In the same way that it’s hard to reduce overheads in comparison to increasing your revenue, training your whole team on complaint handling and how to gain feedback to improve your practice and work systems is vital.
Having different platforms to gain the feedback (good, bad and unfortunately the ugly) is key to keeping the complaints “local” and finding a simple resolution before its escalated.
As I’m sure we tell our patients;
“prevention is much better than cure”.
Feedback is no longer just a marketing bonus but will help stop ongoing or spot potential problems occurring and landing yourself in a huge pile of paperwork or, to be polite… manure.
In many cases, issues or concerns raised to the GDC, NHS and the CQC can result in all 3 potentially getting involved.
So…
- Get feedback
- Use feedback
- Discuss feedback and actions needed
- Implement improvements
- Audit!
…and you are potentially halfway to preventing complaints.
However, a great point to remember is that often complaints are made about a lack of complaints procedure, so following the GDC’s new principles not only meets standards but will help you resolve complaints easier and if it is escalated then you have shown yourself to be following the correct procedure and guidance required and as a bonus, from a CQC point of view, your practice is “well-led”.
Now, I’m not keen on leaving you on such a miserable note…but its also worth pointing out that from 1st April 2018-31st March 2019, the GDC received 75 whistleblowing disclosures …..all being made directly to the Fitness to Practice team. In 56 of those disclosures, regulatory action was taken.
Moral of the not too thrilling story…..ensure your practice policies and procedures are in place and all standards and regulations are met, it’s not just patients that can raise alarm bells!