UK doctors’ body criticises plans for patient feedback

doi:10.1136/bmj.b1102

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Rebecca Coombes

¹BMJ

The Medical Protection Society has criticised government plans to encourage patients to post feedback about their GP on a publicly funded health website.

NHS Choices (www.nhs.uk), a multimillion pound government website, already allows patients to rate hospitals.

Stephanie Brown, director of policy and communications at the Medical Protection Society, a non-profit making organisation that provides legal advice to healthcare professionals, said the plan to extend the NHS Choices service to primary care could lead to “extremely inappropriate” comments being posted online about individual GPs, remarks which may unfairly reflect on a doctor’s clinical competence.

“Patients base their judgments of doctor’s ability on many …