Birmingham Community Healthcare has taken significant steps closer to full recognition of our commitment to customer service following successful Customer Service Excellence (CSE) accreditation visits to Birmingham Dental Hospital and children and families division.
Combined community dental services is due for assessment in the first quarter of 2012. If accreditation is granted, as expected, every part of the Trust will carry the official seal of approval denoting outstanding customer service (subject to reaccreditation this year for citywide adults and community services).
Children and families services and Dental Hospital staff alike were praised for their commitment to giving delivering the highest standard of care following visits to the respective clinical areas late last year.
Both teams were judged to exceed CSE standards in some areas and to have only a small handful of areas in which there was room for improvement.
Assessors paid tribute to the “enthusiasm, dedication and commitment” of colleagues providing children and families services, while the Dental Hospital’s evidence was described as “top of the tree” in terms of the quality and detail of information provided.
The latest recognition of service quality follows earlier accreditation specialist learning disability and rehabilitation services in March 2011. Adults and community services was accredited in October 2009. Now the service is citywide, full accreditation is due in March 2012.
South locality adults and community services team was the first healthcare provider in the West Midlands to receive the CSE standard following its introduction in 2008, replacing the Charter Mark and introducing tougher criteria.
Chief operating officer Andy Harrison said: “We are absolutely delighted that we are so close to achieving Trust-wide accreditation in such a short space of time. I’d like to congratulate all our colleagues who have shown such commitment to delivering services of such high quality and provided such compelling evidence of that quality during their assessments.”
Janet Clarke, clinical director of combined community dental services, said: “In just 12 months, we have had to combine four separate teams working in Birmingham, Sandwell, Dudley and Walsall into one high quality, consistent service. It’s been a big challenge but all the staff have worked hard to provide excellent service during the transition and I’m confident that their commitment will see us achieve accreditation.”
Kath Jakeman, associate director said: “We are really pleased with this recognition. The assessor said our submission was one of the best she has seen and particularly commended the excellent justification which accompanied the evidence.
"I’d like to thank those colleagues that led on pulling that together, with incredible support right across the Dental Hospital and School of Dentistry.”
Sue Marsh, associate director, children and families division, said: “We were able to show the assessor a very broad range of our universal and specialist services including conversations with parents and partners from other agencies.
"Everyone pulled together really well to prepare and the process gave us a good opportunity for reflection on how we can generate hard evidence to demonstrate that we really know our customers and have a culture that promotes the very best service to them.”
The Customer Service Excellence standard offers public services a practical tool for driving customer-focussed change within their organisation. The standard tests areas that research has indicated are a priority for customers, with particular focus on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude.
There is also emphasis on developing customer insight, understanding the user’s experience and robust measurement of service satisfaction.
customerserviceexcellence.uk.com
