Patient Complaints Are A Particular Worry For Young Dentists
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- Published: Tuesday, 28 June 2022 08:03
- Written by Guy Tuggle
- Hits: 1492
Fear of litigation is a recurrent fear across the dental profession, with many older, experienced dentists resigned to believing that it’s not a question of ‘if’ they will be the victim of a legal case against them, but ‘when’.
For young and inexperienced clinicians, however, an unhappy patient can be an especially intimidating prospect.
A survey by Dental Protection of dentists who qualified over past five years has revealed that 88% of them believe they will receive a growing number of complaints and legal cases brought against them throughout their careers.
Few would argue that complaints should be encouraged, investigated and learned from and any well run, customer facing organisation has policies baked into its modus operandi for responding to them. In dentistry, however, complaints and the way they are treated and recorded are the subject of intense scrutiny from regulators, most notably the CQC.
41% of the young dentists surveyed by Dental Protection confessed to feeling worried about receiving complaints directly from patients after treatment. Only 56% - just over half - said they felt confident in their ability to resolve complaints from patients.
George Wright, Deputy Dental Director at Dental Protection commented: “We support members with complaints day in day out and know being on the receiving end of one is unpleasant for any dental professional. Due to higher patient expectations and a more prevalent complaints culture over the years, it is understandable that early career dentists feel the prospect of a complaint is greater than it was for the previous generation of dentists.
Mr Wright went on to say that “restrictions affecting access to routine dental care during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the resulting treatment backlog, has also increased the volume of complaints and indeed this has been a common advice query to Dental Protection.
Many of those starting their careers in the last few years may feel the ‘firefighting’ reality of general dental practice is not in line with their expectations.”
Whilst complaints are a fact of life, dentists can take steps to keep them to a minimum and be able to extinguish them before they escalate. Good communication skills, expectation management, detailed record-keeping and establishing clear consent are invaluable according to Dental Protection.
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