Patient Care and Experience Policy
It is the aim of this practice to put patients at the heart of everything we do, working with them as partners in their care to achieve a high level of satisfaction. All staff, volunteers and contractors are responsible for ensuring that their behaviour and communications with each other, patients and the public contribute to the enhancement of the patient experience and the quality of care.
To achieve a high level of care we:
- Operate a quality assurance programme to ensure:
- Effectiveness of our infection control
- Consistent quality of provided treatment
- Compliance with health and safety legal requirements
- Safe use of x-ray equipment
- Compliance with the GDC requirements for the Continuing Professional Development of our team members
- We learn from any errors, improve continuously and share learning amongst the team
- Make guidance to ensure that all of our treatments are evidence based and follow NICE intervention procedures
- Have a policy of minimum intervention, this means we do the least treatment possible to achieve the best results for our patients
- Do not refuse treatment on the grounds of race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs
Our private fees are designed to be fair and to enable us to offer patients the freedom of choice to have advanced treatments. We operate a robust patient complaints procedure. All comments and suggestions are welcomed and taken very seriously because they help us to continually improve our services to patients. Contemporaneous records are maintained on [Record cards] [Computer records].
To provide an excellent patient experience we:
- Make patients and visitors feel welcomed and informed
- Treat people with dignity and respect throughout the patient journey
- Work to improve health and tackle health inequalities
- Work towards improving access and waiting times
- Provide information for patients and carers in appropriate formats
- Maintain clear communications and foster involvement in decision-making about care
- Offer choice where appropriate
- Build closer relationships
- Provide safe, high quality dental care through teamwork
- Provide information about infection control measures so that patients feel safe
- Deliver dental care in a clean, comfortable, safe and friendly environment
- Provide a private area [in reception] where patients can talk about confidential issues
Measurement of the patient experience
Patients and the public are included in the planning and evaluation of service provision through feedback that they provide via patient satisfaction, surveys, compliments and complaints.
Review
The patient experience is reviewed annually to ensure that standards are maintained and improved [at the iComply Annual Management Review (G 170-TM2)].