ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which complaining about medicine was different in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century. This period was an age of consumption, where consumerist ideas and approaches were applied to all spheres of life, including public services such as healthcare. The chapter suggests that complaining played a crucial part in the construction of the patient as consumer, but that complaining was a somewhat ineffective tool for groups aiming to represent the patient-consumer. Difficulties around establishing complaint as a right, and the long delay surrounding the introduction of formal complaints procedures, point to much more fundamental issues with the whole notion of the patient as consumer. Complaint may still have potential value as a collective tool, not just an individual one, as it could provide a way for patient-consumers to make their views heard.
