Complaints policy

The purpose of the policy:

The purpose of Ocean Cosmetics’ Complaints Policy is to establish a clear process and effective approach to handling complaints, ensuring fairness, and enabling staff at our clinic to resolve issues promptly. We aim to ensure that patients know how to complain. We aim to ensure that patients feel confident that their complaint will be dealt with seriously, investigated appropriately, and that findings will be learned from as we strive to provide our patients with the highest quality of care and
satisfaction. We welcome feedback, including complaints, as an opportunity to improve our services and procedures.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Dr Gina Messiha is responsible for managing clinical complaints.

Who Can Make a Complaint:

A complaint can be made by a person who has directly been affected by an omission or action arising from an interaction with this clinic.

How Can a Complaint be Made:

Patients can make a complaint by telephone, by email or in person, and the complaint can be made verbally or in writing. In any case a written record of the complaint that describes the issues requiring investigation must be kept. This must be agreed with the complainant and ideally signed. The complaint should be addressed to our General Manager. Patients are encouraged to provide as much detail as possible about their complaint, including the date and time of the incident(s) and the names of any staff members involved. Complaints made to the clinic must include the name and contact details of the complainant and as much detail regarding the issue as possible.

Complaints Process:

Complaints of a non-medical nature will be handled by the General Manager. In the case of a treatment-related complaint, the matter will be discussed with the supervising doctor. Our first preference is to discuss the complaint with the complainant in order to clarify the events and make certain to rectify any misunderstandings that have contributed, correct any errors, and determine the best path forward to achieve an outcome that satisfies the complainant and delivers best healthcare and equity for all involved.

If after our best efforts to resolve the complaint with discussion, mediation and remediation, the complainant is still dissatisfied, the patient does have the option to escalate their complaint further to ACCC, Health and Disability Services Complaints Office, Radiation Council of WA or AHPRA, depending on the nature of the complaint.

Recording Complaints:

The complaint will be kept in the patient’s file with a record of any investigations, including correspondence such as emails, letters and telephone discussions with time and date stamps where possible.

Learning from Complaints:

The clinic will investigate the complaint with the aim to satisfy the complainant and to learn from the situation and be able to make improvements in delivering a safe and responsive service. Recommendations made because of the investigation, or any findings made by the manager will be addressed accordingly.