Disputing Doctors

* 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 hierarchies of power in health services?
* What is the significance of the increasing incidence of disputes for the delivery of medical care?

This book looks at the dynamics of doctor-patient disputes. Drawing on ten years of empirical research in the NHS it considers the contexts in which these disputes arise, the different ways in which the parties involved argue their cases or defend their actions and the design of procedures for resolving such conflicts. This publication is timely. Since the 1970s there has been an increasing amount of concern about the increase in complaints and medical negligence claims made by patients and their relatives. For some this reflects our increasingly litigious culture, for others it reflects increased accountability. In this book, the author draws on research with patients, their relatives, doctors and NHS managers to understand 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.