One per cent of doctors receive a fifth of total complaints

A small number of private practice doctors in Victoria are responsible for nearly a fifth of complaints, according to research in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Almost a fifth of all complaints were made against just 96 doctors, who had received four or more complaints each. The research found that the doctors who had received the most complaints were likely to have been practicing medicine for at least 30 years.

A fifth of the 10,000 private practice doctors in Victoria had received at least one complaint in the ten years surveyed.