No-fault-compensation, patient guarantee, peer review committees: the Swedish experience.

Complaints from patients about dental treatment are on the increase internationally and especially in the USA. The Swedish system for dealing with patients' complaints embraces four different pathways which are described in this paper. One of those is a no-fault-compensation system, which is wholly separate from a procedure under the control of the Swedish licensing authority which deals exclusively with assessing professional negligence. A further, voluntary procedure for dealing with patient complaints is mediated by the Swedish Dental Association and its branches. The paper analyses the type and number of complaints and their assessment under the different procedures.