Objective: To obtain information about the nature and the number of complaints, the complainants and the accused health professionals and about the sanctions imposed by the Dutch medical disciplinary courts.
Design: Descriptive, retrospective study.
Setting: Inspectorate for Health Care, Rijswijk, the Netherlands.
Methods: All verdicts (n = 5333) given by the 5 medical disciplinary courts of first instance in the period 1983-1992 and the appeals arising from these verdicts were studied using the data of the Inspector in chief. These were related to the total number of practising clinicians obtained from the Inspectorate, the Royal Dutch Medical Association and Statistics Netherlands. The year of each verdict was noted, the number and nature of the verdicts, the categories of complainants and accused, the number of appeal cases and their consequences.
Results: The number of complaints doubled in the period under study, rising from 379 to 720 per annum. Most of the complaints (92%) were against doctors, but the number of complaints were divided very unevenly over the clinical specialists. A large number of the complaints concerned 'lack of care or inadequate care' (27%), or 'incorrect treatment' (22%). Of all complaints 20% led to a sanction, mostly a warning (62%). Appeals were lodged against 29% of the verdicts. In 22 cases the licence to practice was withdrawn definitively.
Conclusions: Although the number of complaints increased over the study period, there was no reduction in the seriousness of the complaints. The effect of the disciplinary jurisdiction on the quality of care has not yet been adequately investigated.