INTRODUCTION

While there are now a considerable variety of routes of accountability that a member of the medical profession may be subject to, the most common almost certainly continues to be the National Health Service (NHS) Complaints Procedure given that the majority of consultations in the UK will take place in this context.

There remains confusion amongst doctors as to what constitutes a claim as opposed to a complaint. At its most simplistic, a claim is where there has been a breach of the duty of care owed resulting in harm to that individual whose intention is to obtain financial recompense, as the doctor has allegedly not provided the standard of care provided as defined by case law. In contrast, a complaint has been described by the Citizen's Charter Complaints Task Force as ‘an expression of dissatisfaction requiring a response’. The Citizen's Charter Task Force was created by the Conservative Government of that time and published a report in June 1995 on the handling of complaints in the public sector.

It is not unknown for an adverse incident to initially be dealt with through one of these routes but ultimately to lead to the civil courts in an attempt to obtain restitution.