Dental Service Helps Resolve Over 1,500 Complaints In First Year

Thu, 20 Dec 2007

The Dental Complaints Service, set up and funded by the General Dental Council to help resolve healthcare and public services’ complaints, has revealed the majority of complaints it receives are resolved within just three working days. According to the Dental Complaints Service’s first annual report, more than half of the 1,559 complaints logged and closed in its first year of operation were resolved over the phone .

Derek Prentice, chairman of the service, said: "Speed is crucial. All the evidence shows that the longer a complaint takes to resolve, the less likely it is to be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties involved who tend to become more and more entrenched."

The South East, London and the South West regions of the UK yielded most complaints per head of population, while Scotland, the North East and Northern Ireland received the least.

The success of the Service is also due to the very positive response it has received from dental professionals throughout the UK, who have praised it for its even-handedness. Many dental professionals have contacted the service for general advice, and some with about particularly difficult and complicated complaints.

Over 5,000 enquiries were made to the Service using its local rate complaints hotline during the last twelve months, half of which were focused on NHS dental services .

Prentice said: "Resolving complaints successfully is a crucial test for a profession. Through the GDC, the dental profession has risen to the challenge - at least, where private dental care is concerned. The NHS should take note and follow."

The Dental Complaints Service also takes on board complaints that cannot be resolved by individual practices’. If this is the case then advisers offer to help sort out the problem informally with the patient and their dental professional.

The annual report revealed that the majority of complaints received have been about dentists’ services such as pain, costs and manners, while treatment issues were largely focused on fillings, crowns and dentures .

Most of the dental professionals and four out of five complaints who provided feedback rated the Service's performance as "excellent" or "good" in terms of quality.
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