Thrive Dental Care | Privacy Policy

COMPLAINTS POLICY CWMBRAN PRACTICE

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 Laura Channing, our Complaints’ Manager:

· By telephone on 01633 480817

· By email at practicemanager@thrivedentalcare.co.uk

· By letter to Laura Channing, Thrive Dental Care, 36 The Parade, Cwmbran NP44 1PT

· In person

The Complaints’ Manager usually works at the practice on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 9:00 until 16:30 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 two 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 4 weeks 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:

Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, 1 Ffordd yr Hen Gae, Pencoed CF35 5LJ (0300 790 0203 or www.ombudsman-wales.org.uk)

The General Dental Council, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1M 8DQ (Telephone: 0845 222 4141), the dentists’ regulatory body for complaints about professional misconduct

Health Inspector Wales

0300 062 8163

Healthcare Inspectorate Wales Welsh Government Rhydycar Business Park Merthyr Tydfil CF48 1UZ hiw@gov.wales

Date: 12/02/2025

Review: 12/02/2026

COMPLAINTS POLICY MAGOR PRACTICE

In this practice we take complaints very seriously and try to ensure that all our patients are pleased with their experience of our service. When patients complain, they are dealt with courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible. This procedure is based on these objectives.

Our aim is to react to complaints in the way in which we would want our complaint about a service to be handled. We learn from every mistake that we make and we respond to customers’ concerns in a caring and sensitive way.

1. The person responsible for dealing with any complaint about the service that we provide is Laura Channing our Complaints Manager.

2. If a patient complains on the telephone or at the reception desk, we will listen to their complaint and offer to refer him or her to the Complaints Manager immediately. If the Complaints Manager is not available at the time, then the patient will be told when they will be able to talk to the dentist and arrangements will be made for this to happen. The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on. If we cannot arrange this within a reasonable period or if the patient does not wish to wait to discuss the matter, arrangements will be made for someone else to deal with it.

3. If the patient complains in writing the letter will be passed on immediately to the Complaints Manager.

4. If a complaint is about any aspect of clinical care or associated charges it will normally be referred to the dentist, unless the patient does not want this to happen.

5. We will acknowledge the patient’s complaint in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within three working days.

6. We will seek to investigate the complaint within ten working days of receipt to give an explanation of the circumstances which led to the complaint. If the patient does not wish to meet us, then we will attempt to talk to them on the telephone. If we are unable to investigate the complaint within ten working days we will notify the patient, giving reasons for the delay and a likely period within which the investigation will be completed.

7. We will confirm the decision about the complaint in writing immediately after completing our investigation.

8. Proper and comprehensive records are kept of any complaint received.

9. If patients are not satisfied with the result of our procedure then a complaint may be made to:

· Dental Complaints Service, Stephenson House, 2 Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon CR0 6BA (Telephone: 08456 120 540) for complaints about private treatment

· The General Dental Council, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1M 8DQ (Telephone: 0845 222 4141), the dentists’ regulatory body for complaints about professional misconduct · HIW, 0300 062 8163 hiw@gov.wales Welsh Government Rhydycar Business Park, Merthyr Tydfil CF48 1UZ

Date: 17/04/2025

Review: 17/04/2026