15 - Computer print out

A member contacted Dental Protection having been asked by a patient for a copy of her treatment records held by the practice. There was no suggestion of any particular problems but the patient was moving away and felt it might be prudent to take a copy of her dental records to her new practitioner. The practice was more than happy to oblige and attempted to print out the clinical records. This, however, was not quite as easy as it might seem as the computer stubbornly refused to print the records in their entirety. Extremely embarrassed, the member contacted the patient and explained the problem to her before apologising for the delay. The explanation, however, fell on stony ground and the patient assumed that the practice had something to hide. She therefore wrote again to the practice quoting her legal rights, under the Data Protection Acts 1984 and 1998 and refer to the "right of subject access", and requesting her records within 14 days. The practice tried again, in vain, to print the records and even telephoned the computer software company's help desk asking for assistance. They suggested that this problem had never been encountered before. That, of course, did not really help the member who was facing a deadline.

Dental Protection's advice was both simple and straightforward. The patient was invited into the practice to view the data on screen and for a further explanation of the problems the practice was facing. Thankfully, this proved more than acceptable to the patient and no further action was taken. There still remained however the problem of how data could be retrieved from the computer if such a situation was to arise again. Fortunately, after several abortive visits from the software engineers the problem was discovered. It turned out to be nothing more than a faulty switch on the printer.

A prompt apology and an honest response can sometimes prevent a complaint from escalating.