Customer Service - Patient Feedback

We know everyone takes pride in providing the best possible service, and that this can be made difficult at times by varying factors.  Our aim, as always, is to maintain a high level of excellent customer service with care and empathy towards our patients.

We have had many patients compliment staff, verbally – in person or phone call, and in writing either by email or website or Google/social media.  

In particular over the last few weeks we’ve had positive feedback for many staff and that’s been really rewarding to hear. 

We do also get complaints via the same methods, and whilst disappointing to hear we do take all complaints seriously and investigate and try to resolve to the best of our ability.  We do try and look at these complaints as an opportunity to improve our services.

We will be having both internal and external training sessions to address how to handle customer complaints and feedback as well as other customer service related training sessions in July.

In terms of handling complaints that are made in person or over the phone, initially the person taking the call or at the front desk can address the situation, as it may be something that they can resolve quickly and to the patients satisfaction. If it can’t be, then it needs to be escalated to the senior staff member at the site, i.e. phone room supervisor, senior secretary, senior radiographer etc. The complaint may need to be put in writing and then forwarded to the relevant staff – Rita, Dr Lee, Christine T, Katrina depending on complaint classification. Please use the Procedure below for a guide on handling customer complaints. 

Complaints Handling Procedure

Please follow the following guidelines for any complaints received by phone, email or in person.
 

• Any email complaints to be forwarded to Dr Lee, Rita, and either Christine T or Katrina (depending on what modality complaint is related to i.e. US or XR, CT, MRI).  If it is a general practice or procedural complaint then just email Dr Lee and Rita.
• Any phone complaint – if it cannot be immediately handled by the phone room supervisor – will need to have a complaint form completed (see below; also available in the P drive under Practice Docs; Practice-Staff Documents; Complaints Report) and then forwarded to the people listed in point 1 above.
• Any complaint made in person is to be handled initially by the Senior Clerical Staff in charge at each location or the Senior Radiographer at that location. If unable to be resolved immediately, then complaint will need to be documented and forwarded to Dr Lee and Rita and the appropriate Technical Staff member if complaint is in regards to a staff member. 
• Dr Lee and Rita will liaise with appropriate Senior staff re: actions, resolution, feedback etc.
• All practices are to keep incident/accident forms as well as Complaint Forms printed and readily available. They are in the P drive in Practice Docs.
• All incidents are to be recorded by person who was involved (whether that be a patient, visitor or staff member) as well as any witnesses.
• All incidents/accidents to be reported to Admin and all paperwork submitted to Admin for record keeping.
• All social media feedback/complaints will be handled by Michelle and Dr Kariappa.
• Any patient feedback forms that are completed to be forwarded to Administration for response.