The Healthcare Quality, Complaints and Disputes Act: a new Dutch procedure to compensate care-related harm

Civil liability law in medical cases offers patients a possibility to attain compensation. Nevertheless, patients often decide not to recover damages because the recovery of such damages is a very complicated, difficult, time-consuming and costly enterprise. To accommodate the needs of patients in light of this situation, the Healthcare Quality, Complaints and Disputes Act was adopted. This Act contains a complaints and disputes procedure to meet the patient’s problems. One of the main topics of this procedure is that a dispute settlement body can award compensation up to € 25,000 if liability of the care provider is plausible.
This article offers a description and analysis of compensation under the Act. The author will explain the Act by focusing on the new complaints and disputes procedure, and the changes regarding recovery that have been introduced. The author closes by considering the practical effects to date of the measures under the Act.