Quality and Regulation in Health Care

First published in 1992, Quality and Regulation in Health Care employs socio-legal ideas concerning regulation to examine the methods used to influence the quality of health care in the US, UK, and Western Europe. Throughout the Western world, health care systems, both public and private, are grappling with the problems of assuring quality while containing costs. On the one hand, governments and insurers argue that there must be some limit to the apparently endless growth of health care expenditures. On the other, patient groups and consumer advocates, already dissatisfied by the problems in holding doctors accountable for their actions, protest that such limits must not result in sick people getting inferior treatment. This book examines in detail the debate surrounding the question: How can the professional expertise of the clinicians be reconciled with the preferences of their patients and the economic concerns of taxpayers or insurers? It will be essential reading for graduate and undergraduate courses in health policy, medical sociology, and health law.

Robert Dingwall and Paul Fenn

List of tables List of contributors Introduction 1. The tort system and information: some comparisons between the UK and the US 2. Medical discipline in cross-cultural perspective: the United States, Britain and Sweden 3. Complaining - what's the use? 4. Recent developments in medical quality assurance and audit: an international comparative study 5. Legislating for health: the changing nature of regulation in the NHS 6. The pragmatic management of error and the antecedents of disputes over the quality of medical care Bibliography Index