Disputing Doctors: The Socio-legal Dynamics of Complaints about Medical Care

* What are patient experiences of making complaints against doctors and what do they seek to achieve?
* How do doctors and managers respond to complaints and what do their responses reveal about the implicit tensions in the doctor-patient relationship?
* What is the significance of the increasing incidence of disputes for approaches to the delivery of medical care?

This book looks at the dynamics of doctor-patient disputes. Reflecting on fifteen years of empirical research in the NHS it considers the contexts in which these disputes arise, the different ways in which the parties construct disputing narratives and moral identities in the course of making and defending their claims, and the extent to which existing systems for resolving disputes are sensitive to their needs.

This publication is timely. Since the 1970s there has been an increasing amount of concern about the rise in complaints and medical negligence claims made by patients and their relatives. Based on research with patients, relatives, doctors and NHS managers, the book analyses how they perceive these disputes and what they seek to achieve by holding each other to account.

Disputing Doctors is valuable reading for all students, researchers and academics working in the fields of the sociology of health and illness, socio-legal studies, law and medicine, medical sociology, nursing and health policy.