Mediation of medical treatment disputes: a therapeutic justice model end of project report

Report

The aim of this research was to understand whether and, if so, the extent to which mediation can and should be viewed as a form of ‘Therapeutic Justice’ in medical treatment disputes. These are disagreements that arise between patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), family members and others regarding the provision of health and care to the patient. Usually these will be cases where there is some disagreement about what is, or was in the case of a complaint, in the patient’s best interests, although the dispute will often also engage a much wider range of issues.

For this research we conducted an analysis of reported case law, theoretical analysis of ‘Therapeutic Justice’ and best interests, and empirical data collection. The research found:

1) that mediation could be a therapeutic process where it was designed to be flexible, participatory, less adversarial, voluntary, collaborative and enhance participant communication and understanding and we suggest that mediation’s use in health and care disputes should ensure these features are protected and promoted through mediation design;

2) that some participants were closed to mediation and resolution, cynical about mediation and mediators (sometimes family members who distrusted the mediator’s independence of the HCPs), and felt process coercion to participate (usually paediatric HCPs who saw it as a requirement from the court), attitudes which could be seen as anti-therapeutic;

3) that mediation can cause delay in resolution, but that there was no evidence that mediation led to agreements that undermined the patient’s best interests;

4) that religious views of the parties were not a barrier to mediation and that, rather, religious support in mediation can be beneficial for parties.

Authors: Lindsey, J; Francis, G; Doyle, M

• Publication status: Published
• Publication date: 2025-09-08
• Language: English