Archive for the ‘Dentistry’ Category

The General Dental Council announced on 17 October that they intend to bring in a number of changes aimed at improving the handling of fitness to practise complaints against dental professionals.

The GDC say that their aim is to improve the quality and speed of complaints handling to ensure patients are protected effectively.

Amongst the changes planned are:

• An increase in the number of decision meetings and hearings aimed at clearing a backlog of cases and reducing delays;
• An improved, front end diagnostic process to fast track the most serious cases and to deal proportionately with all other cases;
• The provision of clinical advice at the outset in cases where this is appropriate. This will complement the early diagnosis process and ensure cases are handled appropriately;
• A rigorous quality assurance process for all stages of the complaints handling process to ensure effective performance management;
• The introduction in 2011 of a top class case management database to assist workflow and provide management information.

More changes are also planned to improve the speed of the process and “proportionality” but these will require legislative change. Apparently the GDC is working with the Department of Health to effect these changes. The GDC plans a full consultation on the nature of these changes in early 2012.

Alison Miles-Jenkins
Founder & CEO
Training To Achieve

One of the issues you face now which won’t go away after the CQC registration deadline is complaints handling. We’ve spoken to CQC.  They tell us not only do you need a good well-publicised complaints policy and records, but also staff who are competent to address the complaint.

It is likely that CQC will bring an on-going focus on good complaints handling.  As a result of people raising concerns and complaints, there have been cases where adult social care and health care services have had enforcement action taken, including action plans or even closure.

Prevention is better than cure. So to help you avoid these stresses, we have developed a product specifically for dentists.

Our Dental Complaints Handling Essentials Pack gives you:

• a complaints policy for your practice
• a hints and tips booklet for handling dental complaints
• complaints record sheets
• some tools for gathering patient feedback

Our award winning consultancy is one of the UK leading experts in dental complaints training.  “Just to say ‘big thanks’ for yesterday, my team LOVED you! They were so impressed. They found you ‘inspirational and motivating with well focused and relevant ideas to their roles in the profession.” Shaam Shamsi BDS, LDS RCS (Eng), MFGDP (UK), PGCTLCP, Pg Dip Med Eths & Law VT Adviser

Can you afford the risk, the hassle and the stress of being caught out by poor complaints handling?  Our Dental Complaints Handling Essentials Pack will ensure you are up to date and prepared.  Even if you have already registered you will benefit from checking your complaints handling approach against our advice.

Don’t wait for CQC to become interested before you act.  Secure your pack now for just £39.57 including VAT and postage and packing.  This special price has just been extended until 18 April 2011 to allow more dentists to take advantage of this very popular offer.

So, hurry, order your pack now by completing this purchase order form and send it to us or simply pay by card below:

Have you ever wondered how easy it is for dental patients to get help in raising their complaints? It’s getting easier. Extra regulation is coming for the dental sector courtesy of the Care Quality Commission and the environment for dentists is becoming tougher.

A search on Google for dental complaints returned over 3 million results! There are almost no end of websites and blogs offering advice to patients to help them to complaint about their dentist. Some websites are offering helpful practical advice for patients, others are legal firms looking for “no win, no fee” business.

If you contrast that with a search for helpful content to assist dentists in dealing with complaints the picture is much different. Search on Dental Complaints Handling on Google and only 117,000 results are shown. At first look that seems a lot, but flicking through the results once you are past the first few pages the content feels like it diminishes in quality and usefulness considerably. The advice available to the dentist is unsurprisingly from the protection organisations who are really keen to see you resolve complaints well. The regulator, the Dental Complaints Service and professional organisations also offer some help.

Being prepared – the tide is coming in

The challenge for dental professionals is to be prepared for the complaints. If you need help on handling complaints take a look at our free report designed for dentists.  You may not feel like you need to prepare because you have an excellent track record of patient care. Your service is sound and the practice ethos is excellent. That is great but there is a rising tide of complaints, so you may be affected soon.

It may be that tough economic times results in patients being less tolerant and more ready to complain.  In 2009 there were 1419 complaints reported to the GDC.  That was up from 998 in 2008.  The best way to manage the risk of complaints is to not have them in the first place.

Sounds simple but how does that work?

Avoiding complaints

Here are a few pointers

• Good communication is essential.  Most dental team members don’t have formal training in communication skills so it is worthwhile investing in these skills.
• Patient surveys can give a good indication of issues that you may not know you have.  Test some of some of your freindly patients as a start point.
• Target complaints: sounds odd at first, but by asking the customer if there is anything that we could do better, creates a positive environment, shows you care and can often reveal niggles that patients have that they otherwise wouldn’t have voiced.  If you hear about something then you can deal with it.  Otherwise the niggles lie unresoved and may well surface later.
• Don’t make promises to patients unless you can and will keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good patient service is no exception. If you say, “Your new crown will last for at least five years.” make sure you are confident that it will.
• Listen to patients and give them the information they need, in a way they can use, so that they can make decisions. Ths means explaining options (including risks and benefits); and giving full information on proposed treatment and possible costs.

A new report launched today provides dentists and dental practices with usable and workable strategies to resolve complaints more successfully.

Complaints about dentists have been rising. Recent announcements by the Dental Regulator, the General Dental Council, have pointed out that their costs are being driven by the sustained rise in the volume of allegations about the fitness to practise of dentists. Last year the volume increased by 40% and these numbers are so far being sustained in 2010.  The impact on the dental sector is that the regulator has increased their fees for dentists by 31% or approximately £5m each year. 

There has never been a better time for dentists to brush up on their practice complaints handling. To help with this Alison Miles-Jenkins (who has considerable expertise in training dentists to improve their complaints handling) has produced this timely report to assist dentists and their teams with the essentials of good complaints handling.  The thinking behind the report is that by resolving complaints effectively at the dental practice the need for the patient to complain further, for example, to the regulator is removed and the patient, dentist and the whole sector benefits.

The report Five essential strategies to ensure your complaints resolution is successful is now available and is free to download.

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