Policies
Policies

​Complaints Code of Conduct For Patients Policy

 

We want our service to meet your expectations. If you have a concern or complaint about any aspect of our service, we want to know what mistakes we made and identify how we can improve to ensure that we meet your expectations in future. Our aim is to learn from any feedback we receive and improve the service we provide to our patients.

 

We will deal with complaints courteously and promptly and aim to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

 

Making a Complaint

If you wish to make a complaint or simply let us know how we could have done better, please contact Sue Sharma our Complaints’ Manager:

 

• By telephone on 01603 250 583

• By email at  smiles@westearlhamdental.co.uk

• By letter to Sue Sharma, Practice Manager, 50 Earlham West Centre, Norwich, NR5 8AD

• In person

 

The Complaints Manager usually works at the practice Monday to Friday and will endeavour to be available during these times. You may find it more convenient to make an appointment with Complaints Manager to ensure that she can dedicate sufficient time to meet with you.

 

If you contact the practice to make a complaint and the Complaints’ Manager is not available, we will arrange a convenient time for them to contact you. We will ask you for brief details of your complaint so that the Complaints’ Manager can gather any useful information before contacting you. You will be given a copy of the notes made for the Complaints’ Manager.

 

If the matter requires a more immediate response, we will arrange for a senior member of the dental team to deal with it.

 

If your complaint is about your dental treatment or the fee charged, we will usually ask the dentist concerned to contact you, unless you do not want this.

 

We acknowledge all complaints in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within 3 working days.

 

Investigating a Complaint

We will offer to discuss the complaint with you and will ask how you would like to be kept informed of developments – by telephone, letters or e-mail or by face-to-face meetings. We will let you know how we will deal with your complaint and the likely time that the investigation will take to complete. If you do not wish to discuss the complaint further, we will still let you know the expected timescale for completing the investigation.

 

We will investigate your complaint within 6 months and, as far as reasonably practicable, will let you know how our investigation is progressing.

 

When we have completed our investigation, we will provide you with a full written report, unless you have told us that you do not wish for further communication. The report will explain how we considered the complaint, the conclusions we reached for each part of your complaint, details of any remedial action we have taken and whether further action is needed.

 

Records

We keep proper and comprehensive records of any complaints that we receive and the action we have taken following investigation. We review these records regularly to ensure that we recognise our mistakes and take every opportunity to improve our service.

 

If You Are Not Satisfied

If your complaint was about your dental treatment and you are not satisfied with the result of our investigation, you can take up the matter with a relevant external organisation.

 

For Complaints about NHS Treatment:

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank London SW1P 4QP (0345 015 4033 or www.ombudsman.org.uk).

 

For Complaints about Private Treatment:

Dental Complaints Service, Stephenson House, 2 Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon CR0 6BA

(020 8253 0800).

 

Written and reviewed by Sue Sharma I April 2020

​Complaints Handling Policy
 
We are committed to providing high quality care for all and will ensure that our patients and their representatives can seek advice, provide feedback or make a complaint about any aspect our service. This policy describes how we receive, manage, respond to and learn from complaints made about our service. All members of the team are expected to understand and follow this policy when dealing with a patient complaint.
 
The key aspects of this policy are that:
• Our patients know how to complain and are confident that we will take their complaint seriously
• We will investigate all complaints and will keep the patient informed of the findings of our investigation
• We will learn from any complaints, concerns and feedback that we receive and use these lessons to improve our service.
 
Information for Patients
We believe that if a patient wishes to make a complaint or register a concern about any aspect of our service, they should find it easy to do so. Our code of practice for handling complaints encourages patients to let us know when our service has not met their expectations and explains how we will investigate their complaint and keep them informed.
 
Copies of our code are available in the practice and upon request from reception.
 
Our Approach to Complaints
A complaint can be made by a patient of the practice or a person acting on their behalf if the patient is a child, has physical or mental incapacity, has consented to the person acting on their behalf, or has delegated authority to act on their behalf. A complaint can also be made by an individual who is, or is likely to be, affected by our actions, inactions, decisions or omissions.
 
A complaint provides us with the opportunity to identify where our practice systems have failed and what we can do to improve our service. In dealing with a complaint, we will
 
• Be open and transparent to ensure that all those involved understand the process and what to expect
• Acknowledge a complaint promptly
• Undertake evidence-based investigations
• Provide sympathetic responses within appropriate timeframes
• Identify the causes of complaints and act to prevent recurrence
• Learn lessons and implement change
• if the individual is a patient of the practice, ensure that their ongoing care is not adversely affected by the complaint.
 
Practice Complaints Process
Handling a 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, which is stressful and time-consuming for all concerned.
 
When making a complaint, an individual usually wants an apology and to know what happened and why, what will be done to put it right, what action will be taken immediately and to prevent the cause for complaint happening again.
 
Receiving Complaints
All members of the team must be able to receive a complaint or feedback (verbal or written) and deal with it appropriately. You should bear in mind that the individual making the complaint may not refer to their concern as a complaint.
 
The practice Complaints Manger, Sue Sharma, is responsible for dealing with all complaints received by the practice, unless immediate resolution is possible. The responsible person in charge of overseeing our complaints procedure and implementing changes where necessary is Dr Gautam Sharma.
 
Verbal Complaints
Listen to what the individual is saying and be polite and considerate; avoid justifying the action that led to the complaint or being dismissive of the individual’s concerns. Where possible and, depending on the nature of the complaint, you should aim to resolve the matter as soon as it is received, making a note of the complaint and how you resolved it and pass the information to the Complaints Manager, Sue Sharma.
 
If you are unable to resolve the complaint immediately, you should encourage the individual to speak with the Complaints Manager. If the Complaints Manager is not available, you should take brief details of the complaint and arrange a convenient time for the Complaints Manager to contact the individual. Your notes should be passed to the Complaints Manager and a copy given to the patient, together with a copy of the code of practice for handling patient complaints.
 
If the complaint requires an urgent response and the Complaints Manager is not available, you should pass the complaint to Dr Gautam Sharma.
 
Written Complaints
If you receive a written complaint (by letter or email.), you should pass it immediately to the Complaints Manager.
 
Acknowledgement
The Complaints Manager will acknowledge the complaint in writing within three working days and enclose a copy of our code of practice for handling complaints. If a delay in acknowledging the complaint is anticipated, the reason for the delay will be explained to the individual.
 
The acknowledgement will include
• Confirmation that the matter will be investigated and that the individual will receive a report of the findings
• An offer to meet with the individual to discuss the complaint and gather information
• A description of how the complaint will be handles and who will be involved
• Anticipated timescales for the investigation and preparation of the report
• How the individual would like to be kept informed of progress
• Local organisations that can provide help.
 
• The individual will be informed that they can obtain advice and information from the Independent Complaints Advocacy Team at the local NHS Healthwatch – see.healthwatch.co.uk/find-local-healthwatch for contact details
 
Investigation
The purpose of the investigation is to
• Understand what the complaint is about
• Establish what the individual would consider to be a satisfactory resolution
• Seek the views of other team members and seek suggestions on how to resolve the matter
• Identify other useful sources of information – for example, published research, suppliers
 
We aim for the investigation to be completed and for the individual to receive the report within 10 working days. Where we anticipate a delay, we will explain this to the individual and provide an update on progress at least every 10 working days.
 
Response
Before providing a written response, we will invite the individual to a meeting to discuss the findings of our investigation.
 
Our written response to the individual will
• Address all the issues raised and demonstrate that each has been fully and fairly investigated
• Include an apology where something has gone wrong
• Explain our conclusions and any action that we have taken as a result or explain why no further action is needed
• Include details of how to contact the NHS Ombudsman or the Dental Complaints Service if the individual remains dissatisfied
 
Records
The Complaints Manager keeps full records of all complaints, investigations and responses. These records are kept securely and not with the individual’s clinical records (if they are a patient of the practice). These records include:
• The date a complaint was received, by who and how (verbally or in writing)
• Details of the complaint and the results of the investigation
• Copies of any communications and records of telephone conversations and meetings
• The outcome of the complaint and any action that we took as a result
• Correspondence between the patient and the practice.
 
Learning from Complaints
We adopt a no-blame approach to complaints that we receive but recognise that all feedback provides an opportunity for us to develop and improve our service.
 
As soon as possible after a complaint has been dealt with, we will ensure that those involved are given individual feedback. Where our investigations identify a need to improve or review our practice systems, we will encourage general discussion at practice meetings and seek suggestions for improvement. Any agreed changes will be kept under review. We will undertake ongoing monitoring of all complaints to identify trends and assess training requirements.
 
Written and reviewed by Sue Sharma I April 2020
Patient Appointments Policy
 
We endeavour to manage our appointments system to avoid delays in appointment times and minimise loss of surgery time through cancellations and failed appointments.

Practice Appointment System
• We manage our appointments so that treatment appointments are booked no more than 6 months ahead
• We try not to keep you waiting and to see you within ten minutes of your appointment time. Where there is a delay, we will explain the reasons
• Where the length of your appointment is longer than twenty minutes, we will remind you of the day and time of your appointment by text
• If we need to change or cancel an appointment, we will give you as much notice as possible, and explain the reasons
• We will let you know if there is a change in the dentist that you will see, and explain the reason for the change
 
Communications
• We will be courteous, friendly and professional always
• We will respond promptly to telephone calls and never ask you to ‘hold’ without first finding out why you have called
• You will receive full information about our services and our policy for collecting fees, including the methods of payment that we accept
• We will explain your treatment options and costs, answer your questions and allow you time to consider the best for you
• We will provide a treatment plan and estimate of costs for each new course of treatment and seek your full and specific consent before providing any treatment
• We will provide urgent advice and care during practice hours as soon as is practicable. Outside normal surgery hours please call 111
• We will refer you for further professional advice and treatment when appropriate
• We will respond to correspondence within five days of receipt
• We encourage you to provide feedback; we will listen to your views and learn from them
• We make it easy for you to complain or raise a concern about any aspect of the care or service that you have received. Our procedure for dealing with complaints is available from reception and on our website
 
We Ask That You
• Participate in your dental treatment, particularly any advice about prevention and diet that we have asked you to continue at home
• Arrive on time for your appointment
• Let us know if you are unable to keep your appointment; please give at least 24 hours’ notice.
o For private patients, we may charge for missed appointments where we have not been notified.
o For NHS patients, if you miss an appointment on more than one occasion without letting us know, we may need to review future provision of treatment for you at the practice.
• Tell us if your contact details (address, telephone numbers, email) change so that we can keep our records up to date and ensure that we are able to contact you
• Treat our staff courteously; they will do their best to help meet your needs

Written and reviewed by Sue Sharma I April 2020
Cancellation Policy

If your appointment time becomes inconvenient for you, we are always happy to change it if you provide us with 48 business hours’ notice. This allows us to schedule in a patient who may be in urgent need of our care.
Courtesy Appointment Reminders

We operate an automated appointment reminder system by text message to your mobile phone. Please give your permission and indicate your preferred contact method which is located on your Medical History Form. However, whichever method you choose it can be changed or cancelled at any time. Please also be reminded that you cannot rely on text message reminders for your appointment; it is ultimately the patient’s responsibility to remember their appointment details.
Privacy Notice

The practice aims to meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR], the guidelines on the Information Commissioner’s website as well as our professional guidelines and requirements.

The data controller is the practice owner, who is also the information Governance Lead and the Data Protection Officer.

This Privacy Notice is available on the practice website, at reception, by email by calling the practice.

Telephone: 01603 250583

You will be asked to provide personal information when joining the practice. The purpose of us processing this data is to provide optimum health care to you.

The categories of data we process are:
  • Personal data for the purposes of staff and self-employed team member management
  • Personal data for the purposes of [direct mail/email/text/other] marketing
  • Special category data including health records for the purposes of the delivery of health care
  • Special category data including health records and details of criminal record checks for managing employees and contracted team members
We never pass your personal details to a third party unless we have a contract for them to process data on our behalf and will otherwise keep it confidential. If we intend to refer a patient to another practitioner or to secondary care such as a hospital we will gain the individual’s permission before the referral is made and the personal data is shared.
  • Personal data is stored in the EU whether in digital or hard copy format
  • Personal data is stored in the US in digital format when the data storage company is certified with the EU-US Privacy Shield
  • Personal data is obtained when a patient joins the practice, when a patient is referred to the practice and when a patient subscribes to an email list
The lawful basis for processing special category data such as patients’ and employees’ health data is:
  • Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventative or occupational medicine, for assessing the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or management of health or social care systems and services on the basis of Union or Member State law or a contract with a health professional
The lawful basis of processing personal data such as name, address, email or phone number is:
  • Consent of the data subject
  • Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject or to take steps to enter into a contract
  • [Other]
The retention period for special data in patient records is a minimum of 10 years and may be longer for complex records in order to meet our legal requirements. The retention period for staff records is 6 years. The retention periods for other personal data is 2 years after it was last processed. Details of other retention periods are available in the Record Retention procedure available from the practice.

You have the following personal data rights:
  • The right to be informed
  • The right of access
  • The right to rectification
  • The right to erasure (clinical records must be retained for a certain time period)
  • The right to restrict processing
  • The right to data portability
  • The right to object
Further details of these rights can be seen in our Information Governance Procedures or at the Information Commissioner’s website. Here are some practical examples of your rights:
  • If you are a patient of the practice you have the right to withdraw consent for important notifications, newsletters, surveys or marketing. You can inform us to correct errors in your personal details or withdraw consent from communication methods such as telephone, email or text. You have the right to obtain a free copy of your patient records within one month.
  • If you are not a patient of the practice you have the right to withdraw consent for processing personal data, to have a free copy of it within one month, to correct errors in it or to ask us to delete it. You can also withdraw consent from communication methods such as telephone, email or text.
We have carried out a Privacy Impact Assessment and you can request a copy from the details below. The details of how we ensure security of personal data is in our Security Risk Assessment and Information Governance Procedures.

Comments, suggestions and complaints

Please contact the practice for a comment, suggestion or a complaint about your data processing, We take complaints very seriously.

If you are unhappy with our response or if you need any advice you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Their telephone number is 0303 123 1113, you can also chat online with an advisor. The ICO can investigate your claim and take action against anyone who’s misused personal data. You can also visit their website for information on how to make a data protection complaint.

Related practice procedures

You can also use these contact details to request copies of the following practice policies or procedures:

Data Protection and Information Security Policy, Consent Policy
Privacy Impact Assessment, Information Governance Procedures
Cookie Policy

We are very delighted that you have shown interest in our enterprise. Data protection is of a particularly high priority for the management of the West Earlham Dental Health Practice. The use of the Internet pages of the West Earlham Dental Health Practice is possible without any indication of personal data; however, if a data subject wants to use special enterprise services via our website, processing of personal data could become necessary. If the processing of personal data is necessary and there is no statutory basis for such processing, we generally obtain consent from the data subject.

The processing of personal data, such as the name, address, e-mail address, or telephone number of a data subject shall always be in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and in accordance with the country-specific data protection regulations applicable to the Dentistry On The Square. By means of this data protection declaration, our enterprise would like to inform the general public of the nature, scope, and purpose of the personal data we collect, use and process. Furthermore, data subjects are informed, by means of this data protection declaration, of the rights to which they are entitled.

As the controller, the West Earlham Dental Health Practice has implemented numerous technical and organizational measures to ensure the most complete protection of personal data processed through this website. However, Internet-based data transmissions may in principle have security gaps, so absolute protection may not be guaranteed. For this reason, every data subject is free to transfer personal data to us via alternative means, e.g. by telephone.

The Internet pages of the West Earlham Dental Health Practice use cookies. Cookies are text files that are stored in a computer system via an Internet browser.

Many Internet sites and servers use cookies. Many cookies contain a so-called cookie ID. A cookie ID is a unique identifier of the cookie. It consists of a character string through which Internet pages and servers can be assigned to the specific Internet browser in which the cookie was stored. This allows visited Internet sites and servers to differentiate the individual browser of the dats subject from other Internet browsers that contain other cookies. A specific Internet browser can be recognized and identified using the unique cookie ID.

Through the use of cookies, the West Earlham Dental Health Practice can provide the users of this website with more user-friendly services that would not be possible without the cookie setting.

By means of a cookie, the information and offers on our website can be optimized with the user in mind. Cookies allow us, as previously mentioned, to recognize our website users. The purpose of this recognition is to make it easier for users to utilize our website. The website user that uses cookies, e.g. does not have to enter access data each time the website is accessed, because this is taken over by the website, and the cookie is thus stored on the user’s computer system. Another example is the cookie of a shopping cart in an online shop. The online store remembers the articles that a customer has placed in the virtual shopping cart via a cookie.

The data subject may, at any time, prevent the setting of cookies through our website by means of a corresponding setting of the Internet browser used, and may thus permanently deny the setting of cookies. Furthermore, already set cookies may be deleted at any time via an Internet browser or other software programs. This is possible in all popular Internet browsers. If the data subject deactivates the setting of cookies in the Internet browser used, not all functions of our website may be entirely usable.

If you take the opportunity to ‘share’ content with friends through social networks – such as Facebook and Twitter – you may be sent cookies from these websites. We don’t control the setting of these cookies, so please check the third-party websites for more information about their cookies and how to manage them.

Further Information About Cookies
If you’d like to learn more about cookies in general and how to manage them, aboutcookies.org. If you’d like to opt out of cookies, please go to the Network Advertising Initiative website.

Please note that we’re not responsible for the content of external websites.

First-Party Cookies (Cookies Set By Us)
These are cookies set by this website. Some are necessary to the functionality of the site, others provide information to us that we analyse to monitor and improve the site. These first-party cookies do not store or collect any personal information or anything that makes you personally identifiable to us. Typically, the cookies generate a random, unique number to store information about a user.

How To Control And Delete Cookies
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit the About Cookies website, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.

  • Cookies: Frequently Asked Questions
  • How to control cookies
  • How to delete cookies
Please be aware that restricting cookies may have an impact upon the functionality of our website.

If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You’ll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.

For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual. To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.
Information About Dentist

To view information on our dentists, please go to www.gdc-uk.org. 
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