Diamond Court Dental Practice

Patient Survey 2015

INTRODUCTION

We constantly strive to improve the service that we provide to our patients and strongly value all forms of feedback. Our annual patient survey plays a crucial role in identifying the areas in which we are performing well and also areas where we could improve.

METHOD

All patients attending our practice from August 2014 to August 2015 were invited to participate in our survey. The survey was carried out in the form of an e-survey with participants receiving an e-mail containing a direct link to the survey form. All responses were assessed in an anonymous fashion.

RESULTS

Responses were received from 58 patients.

GENERAL COMMENTS:

Always a pleasure to visit my dentist and his team.

The use of ipads regarding patient information is possibly not suitable for all patients

because of patient's disabilities eg dyslexia, visual impairment and dementia.

Have always been very happy with the service at the practice. All staff are friendly

and respectful. No complaints.

Excellent care, thankyou.

Wonderful place.

I have been a patient over a number of years now and have found the service I have

received, excellent in every way. Thank you for restoring my faith in Dentists.

I had a phobia about going to the dentist but over the many years I have now been a

patient at Diamond Court I am pretty well 'cured' !

Diamond Court is the best dentist I've ever been with, Paul Flint is an amazing

professional, going well above and beyond my expectations, which I assume is

made possible by the meticulous support of the team around him. Thanks!

Have always found the practice to be excellent. Have been a patient for 60 years

since I was a child. Superb Practice. Cannot be bettered.

A really professional and friendly practice.

Very happy with quality of customer service from all staff and the high clinical

standards of my hygienist and dentist.

Brilliant as usual ,very professional ,slick and friendly. Many thanks!

My only concern regards students who have been with the practice all their

childhood , then go on a gap year and find they are no longer NHS patients, even

though they are in full time education. There is no information on this anywhere.

The waiting room magazines are a bit worn out. The waiting room chairs could do

with a bit of a recover.

An excellent service. Slight concern regarding iPads. Are they regularly disinfected?

No objection in principle to using iPads.

Thank you for referring me to the Charles Clifford Sheffield. I am now receiving

treatment there.

I was kept waiting for over 20 minutes without a word of explanation. I had another

appointment that I needed to go to so I left without getting a reason for not being

called. I was only having a clean.

Receptionists try hard to fit you in if you have an emergency. Probably do need more

appointments though.

DISCUSSION

The results of the survey were extremely encouraging with a strong majority (>90%) of respondents selecting “good” or “excellent” for each question. Compared to the results of the patient survey carried out last year, standards can be seen to have been maintained or improved in each area. It was very promising to see that 86% and 14% of respondents thought that overall the service and treatment that they had received at the practice was excellent or good respectively.

Participation in the survey was significantly better than last year and completed responses were received from 58 patients. This is likely to be due to the fact that the practice has now gathered a larger number of e-mail addresses to send the survey to.

The practice has recently installed iPads in our reception area to collect patient information, such as medical histories, which were previously collected in paper format. An increase in legislation in the dental profession means that a patient has to sign up to four different forms for every course of treatment and we are hoping that collecting and storing this information in electronic format will improve the efficiency of the practice and also solve the problem of storing

all the paper forms. The majority of respondents were positive about using iPads but we understand that some patients may not welcome this change. We hope that as the software develops and improves then using the iPads will become much easier and our reception staff are readily available to support anybody who is having difficulty filling in their electronic forms.

The results of previous patient surveys have raised concerns about appointments being cancelled at short notice and also the use of a radio in our reception area. We subsequently installed a practice policy requiring dentists and hygienists to give at least 3 months notice when booking annual leave and we also included a consultation about the use of a radio in last year’s annual survey. It was extremely encouraging to note that there weren’t any negative comments on either of these topics in this year’s survey.

Several respondents took the opportunity to provide specific feedback in the general comments section of the survey and again the majority of the feedback was positive.

One patient expressed dissatisfaction about how long they had been kept waiting for their appointment and weren’t offered any explanation for their wait. Wherever possible we try to keep to appointment times so that patients aren’t left waiting but on some occasions emergencies or unforeseen circumstances can arise which can unfortunately mean that a dentist or hygienist runs late. It is our policy to try and let patients know if they are likely to be kept waiting for their appointment but, regrettably, it would appear that this wasn’t done on this occasion.

Another patient felt that the chairs in our reception area are worn and are in need of replacing. In light of this feedback, we plan to replace the chairs in the near future.

ACTION PLAN

1. To reinforce to all clinicians the need to keep patients informed if they are likely to be kept waiting for their appointments

2. To replace the seating in our waiting room

3. To make patients aware that help is available if they encounter problems with using the iPads in our reception area