Complaints Procedure

The Dental Box Limited

Registered address: Figurit Niddry Lodge, 51 Holland Street, Kensington, London W8 7JB.

Company Number: 13846730

COMPLAINTS CONTACT DETAILS

Name: Mrs Jodie Claridge

Telephone: 01892 254 879

E-mail: jodie@thedentalbox.co.uk

Address: The Dental Box, 145 London Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 0NA

Web: www.thedentalbox.co.uk

POLICY STATEMENT

At The Dental Box Limited, we believe that if a customer wishes to file a complaint or express dissatisfaction, it should be easy for them to do so.

It is The Dental Box policy to receive complaints and consider them as an opportunity to learn, adapt, improve, and provide a better service.

In addition, a quick resolution of a complaint, in a way that respects and values the person’s feedback, can be one of the most important factors in recovering the persons confidence in our products and services. It can also help prevent further escalation of the complaint. A responsive, efficient, and fair complaint management procedure can assist us to achieve this on each complaint.

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that complaints are dealt with consistently and properly and that all comments and complaints are taken seriously. This organisation expects staff at all levels to be committed to fair, effective and efficient complaint handling.

OUR PRINCIPLES

The Dental Box Limited will ensure that our customers have the right to:

Be treated fairly and sensitively
Be kept informed about what is happening with their complaint
And be advised of the service standards they should expect
The timescale for acknowledging and responding to a complaint
And any right of appeal.

All staff representing The Dental Box Limited will:

Be sensitive to the particular needs of customers
Treat complaints as confidential, where possible
Be accessible and clearly identified.

Our policy will:

Be open, easily accessible, and widely promoted to all our customers and those who represent them
Be easy to understand and use by all customers and employees
Set out how to complain and how a complaint should be handled.

PURPOSE

This policy is intended to ensure that The Dental Box Limited handle complaints fairly, efficiently, and effectively.

The company’s objective is to ensure that its complaints procedures are properly implemented effectively and that complainants feel confident that their complaints, worries, or concerns are listened to and acted upon promptly and equitably.

Our complaints management system aims to:

Record the patient complaint on their individual file and on the complaints register
Allow us to respond to questions raised by people who file a complaint in a timely manner
Increase the confidence of the person making a complaint or providing feedback and comments, in our administrative procedures, and
Provide information that we can improve the quality of our products and services, staff training and complaint handling
This policy provides guidance to all our staff and to individuals who wish to file a complaint about our key principles and concept of our complaints management system.

SCOPE

This policy applies to all staff receiving or managing complaints from patients made to us or about us, regarding our products, services, staff, and complaint handling.

WHAT IS A COMPLAINT?

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction about our products, services, our staff, our actions, or lack of actions taken regarding operations, facilities, advertising and marketing information and anybody or company acting on our behalf.

A formal complaint means a complaint that has not been successfully resolved through our complaint management systems outlined in this policy. The complainant has chosen to formalise the complaint by completing our complaint form, or by writing to us.

An informal complaint means a complaint that has been received by us, by phone, email, postal mail or in person, which has not been submitted on our complaint form.

COMPLAINT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

All complaints will be recorded on both the client file and the complaint management system. This is a software system we have designed in-house to enable us to track the complaint and use the management information for future developments and improvements.

We will confirm the complaint details to the patient in writing (this may be email/text message or letter depending on the customer’s choice) within 3 working days of receipt.

We will continue to keep the customer informed on the progress of the complaint weekly, in writing, through their preferred method of contact i.e., email or post.

If the complaint involves a third party, such as a manufacturing fault, we will hold the complaint as we see the customer as our customer and work with the manufacturer to resolve the fault. We will inform the customer of the third party promptly; including the third-party contact details where applicable.

ORAL COMPLAINTS

The Dental Box Limited staff who receive a verbal complaint should try to resolve this immediately if possible.

Information is to be recorded on the patient file, including the completion of the complaints form and a letter or email sent to the customer clarifying the complaint and action to be taken including estimated time frames. This can also be communicated verbally but will always be followed up in writing. This is to be done within three days of the oral complaint being received.

The complaint is to be discussed with the company complaints manager, Mrs Jodie Claridge, or Mr Anthony Lam in her absence.

Mrs Jodie Claridge, or Mr Anthony Lam in her absence will be the named person who deals with complaints through the process. When staff or management receive an oral complaint, both should listen sincerely to the issues raised by the complainant. Any contact with a complainant must be polite, courteous, and sympathetic. At all times, staff and management must remain calm and respectful.

After discussing the issues raised each staff member or management handling the complaint should suggest an action plan to resolve the complaint. If this action plan is acceptable, staff or management should clarify the agreement with the complainant and agree on a way in which the results of the complaint will be communicated to the complainant this may mean a meeting or in writing.

If the proposed action plan is not acceptable to the complainant, staff or management should ask the complainant to make their complaint in writing to The Dental Box and provide a copy of our complaint’s procedure and a complaint form.

WRITTEN COMPLAINTS

When a complaint is received in writing, it must be forwarded to the named complaints contact, Mrs Jodie Claridge, Complaints Manager, The Dental Box, 145 London Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 0NA, who must enter the details into the complaints log and then send a acknowledge receipt within three working days in order to establish a relationship of confidence with the person who has raised the complaint.

If necessary, further clarification should be obtained from the complainant. If the complaint is not made by our patient but is made on their behalf, the patient’s consent, preferably in writing, must be obtained in advance from the patient.

After receiving the complaint, a copy of the complaint’s procedure must be given to the customer. Clearly and politely explain the complaints process, the time it may take and realistic expectations. We may have to arrange a visit to the customer’s home. This must be arranged within 14 days and confirmed in writing.

Immediately upon receipt of the complaint, The Dental Box will launch an investigation and within 28 days should be in a position to provide a written explanation to the complainant, either in writing or arranging a meeting to visit the individuals concerned. On some occasions, this may not be possible. We will write to the customer and explain that we are still investigating, why there is a delay and propose a date that we hope to provide them with an explanation.

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

Complaints are an essential management tool which allows us to learn about the products and services we provide. They are a useful source of information about how the customers see our services and how we are serving our customers.

To ensure that The Dental Box can learn from its complaints, the following data should be collected for every complaint received:

The name, address and contact details of the complainant
The name and role of the person internally dealing with the complaint
The dates on which the complaint was received and on which it was responded to
The nature of the complaint
The outcome of the complaint
How the complaint was received
Remedial/Redress action carried out in response to the complaint
Lessons learnt from the complaint.

It is important that complaint information is reported and considered on a regular basis and shared at all levels with The Dental Box.

The following methods will be used to report complaints information:

A weekly report to the management
A monthly overview report compiled by the management team
A 6-monthly report to show the data, causes and actions taken to avoid these complaints in the future.

We use some core principles that help us to provide effective management data, and effective root causes analysis. Not only will these help the analysis quality, but these will also help the analyst gain trust and buy-in from staff and customers:

Focus on correcting and remedying root causes rather than just symptoms
Do not ignore the importance of treating symptoms for short-term relief
Realise there can be, and often are, multiple root cause
Focus on HOW and WHY something happened, not WHO was responsible
Be methodical and find concrete cause-effect evidence to back up root cause claims
Provide enough information to inform a corrective course of action
Consider how a root cause can be prevented (or replicated) in the future.

The above principles illustrate when we analyse deep issues and causes, it is important to take a comprehensive and holistic approach. In addition to discovering the root cause, we should strive to provide context and information that will result in an action or a decision. Good analysis is actionable analysis.

DATA PROTECTION

To process a complaint, The Dental Box will hold personal data about the complainant. This includes data the complainant provides us and information that other people provide, about the complaint, in response to our enquiries. The Dental Box will hold this data securely and only use it to help process the complaint.

The identity of the person making the complaint will only be made known to those who need to consider the complaint and will not be revealed to any other person or be made public by us. However, it may not be possible to preserve confidentiality in some circumstances, for example, where relevant legislation applies, or allegations are made which involve the conduct of any third parties, for example, delivery of the goods from a manufacturer.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), under Article 15, gives individuals the right to request a copy of any of their personal data which are being ‘processed’ (i.e. used in any way) by ‘controllers’ (i.e. those who decide how and why data are processed), as well as other relevant information (as detailed below). These requests are often referred to as ‘data subject access requests’, or ‘access requests’. We normally destroy our complaint files 15 years after the complaint has been closed. We will maintain records for finance patients as part of their dental records.

DDU Guidance on Retaining and destroying patient records.

OUR PROCEDURE

Any complaint verbal or written, including electronically, will be referred to the complaints manager, Mrs Jodie Claridge at the earliest opportunity (max within 24 hours) or to the next senior member of the team if Mrs Jodie Claridge is unavailable. We will also:

Record details on the patient’s file
Record details on the complaints management tracker
We will not delay the complaint by asking for it in writing to us about your complaint
We will acknowledge the complaint in writing within three days, detailing our understanding of the complaint, our suggestion solution, and timeframes. Depending on the complaint this could take up to 28 days or longer
We will make contact to seek clarification on any points where necessary
Disclose to the customer any third parties that may be involved in resolving the complaint
Fully investigate the complaint
Keep the patient informed of our progress
Keep the patient informed on time frames
Discuss with you our findings and proposed response
Provide clear deadlines to respond
Provide the customer with a final response.

The patient will receive contact from us advising on progress if we cannot respond immediately. We will let the patient have our final response as soon as possible and not later than eight weeks.

Patients may express dissatisfaction to us about our products, services, staff, or advertising. We will need to establish if the complaint relates to the information given, the firm or the service and installation. If unclear, this must not delay the investigation and we will proceed with our own investigation. Mrs Jodie Claridge will review this matter and continue to investigate and provide a written explanation and any supporting information. This may include photos, checklists, or remedial satisfaction notes.

INVESTIGATION

Mrs Jodie Claridge will establish the nature and scope of the complaint.

Deal with complaints promptly and fairly
Give complainants clear replies and, where appropriate, fair redress
If a third party is involved, such as a manufacturer or lab technician we will liaise with them directly. Our patient is always seen as our patient. If we have to share any data with the manufacturer i.e., the customer name and address in order to contact the patient, we will obtain consent to do so.
We may take up to 8 weeks to provide a response but will provide weekly updates, so the customer is aware we are working to resolve the complaint.

We will:

Document and report the complaint
Investigate whether the patient needs a clinical review
Interview staff
Gather evidence including photographs and clinical notes
Involve third parties if required such as product manufacturers or lab technicians (informing the customer)
Review and evaluate the information collated
Take any necessary action
Document our conclusions
Follow-up

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE POLICY

The director and owner of the business as responsible for monitoring the policy on an annual basis.

Mrs Jodie Claridge is responsible for the overall policy and its reviews.