Managing disputes within medicine: is there a role for alternative dispute resolution?

Managing complaints from disappointed patients is now so frequent that it has become part of dayto- day professional life. Doctors are under fire from many directions — they are obliged to cooperate with the NHS complaints procedures, must respond to separate legal complaints and are vulnerable to patients complaining directly to the General Medical Council (GMC). The cumulative effect of this three-pronged attack is to draw the profession’s attention to the need to maintain standards but also to battle-harden individuals against the worry and annoyance which such complaints invoke.