The rise in the use of social media has contributed to a doubling of complaints against doctors in five years, it is reported.
Negative press coverage and a decline in "deference" towards them from patients has also led to the soaring number of complaints, which rose from 5,168 in 2007 to 10,347 in 2012.
The General Medical Council, which regulates all doctors in the UK, commissioned researchers from Plymouth University to investigate the rise, and the GMC said there was no evidence of falling standards across the profession.
Researchers instead found social media such as Facebook and Twitter meant patients could better discuss their experiences of the medical profession and share information.
The report found patients were better informed about their health and had higher expectations of doctors and were less deferential towards them than in the past. Patients were also more likely to complain.
Negative press coverage of the medical profession was also seen to have sparked a surge in complaints, with people emboldened to contact the GMC after seeing others may have shared their grievances.
But it also fuelled a rise in complaints not relevant to the GMC, and which should have been made to other medical bodies.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article