It is becoming a more commonplace occurrence in dental practices to receive a complaint that is a little longer than normal – because it has been AI generated. Jaimie Kaffash reports
A report by Cogora, the publishers of GDPUK, on complaints in general medical practice found that they were increasing in number. One of the reasons was because AI was allowing patients to complain more easily.
At a launch event for the report, Medical Protection deputy medical adviser Dr Sarah Townley told delegates at Pulse Live Birmingham that they are seeing a proliferation of complicated letters that contain legal arguments ‘that maybe don’t exist’.
She said: ‘We're seeing the use of AI in claims, we're seeing it in litigation. People are bringing claims in their own name, they're not using solicitors. These letters can be 25 pages long, quoting various legal arguments that maybe don't even exist because it's been generated by AI.’
Even if the claims have no legal merit, these are having major implications for practices, she said: ‘The workload being created by that is phenomenal, because you have to sift through so much more information.
‘It's not about the severity of the complaint, that doesn't equate to how long it is now. It can be something very simple, but then suddenly that's now five or six pages long.’
Dr Townley’s colleague, Dr Yvonne Shaw, underwriting policy lead at Dental Protection, says the same thing is happening in dentistry. ‘Some AI tools can unnecessarily escalate complaints by essentially validating a patient’s point of view without understanding the underpinning facts,’ she says. ‘For example, in an AI-generated complaint letter it was stated that pain after an extirpation in root canal treatment meant something went wrong with the treatment and the patient should be compensated. In reality, we know that pain after an extirpation is a common occurrence and not reflective of wrongdoing on the practitioner’s part, and critically, not something that would warrant compensation.’
Patients turning to AI are ‘unlikely to receive an unbiased view of the situation’, but they may go down the route if they do not feel confident raising it but may go down this route to see if their concerns are justified or if they do not feel confident about raising concerns with the practice directly. She adds: ‘We know from experience that resolving a complaint can be as simple as ensuring a patient feels heard and their concerns are recognised. Meeting a patient to talk through the issues can go a long way to rebuilding trust and moving a patient away from feeling isolated and viewing AI as the only route for support.’
Dental professionals who receive a complaint like this should ‘seek immediate support from their indemnity provider’, Dr Shaw says. ‘Do not be tempted to fight AI with AI – AI-generated practitioner responses can lack the objectivity needed when considering and responding to a complaint and only compound the issue.’
This is an issue that the British Dental Association has raised with the GDC. Its head of indemnity, Dr Len d’Cruz, spoke at a council meeting of the GDC about complaints and fitness-to-practise, and AI-generated complaints formed a major part of the talk.
Dr Eddie Crouch, chair of the BDA, tells GDPUK that this is an issue increasingly being raised. He says: ‘The types of complaints, even when they were quite frivolous, were exaggerated into something that people would look at it and think “crikey, this is a serious complaint”, because of the terminology used in it, and the trigger points there, talking about patient safety, or dishonesty, or various other things like that. They might be spurious allegations, but look very robust when they're put through AI to produce a letter of complaint.’ It is something that ‘creates additional stress and hassle and extra work’.
At the GDC meeting, the BDA gave an example of a patient who missed regular appoints, Dr Crouch says: ‘They were asked by the practice not to put in for further appointments and go elsewhere. But the patient complained about this, it was copied into the GDC, and so the issue became much harder for that practice to deal with.’
The BDA says it is concerned about misleading narratives, with patients utilising AI tools to analyse incomplete histories or upload previous radiographs, generating high-certainty interpretations that undermine trust in clinical assessments. It adds that they AI is generating lengthy documents, threatening legal action, and quoting false or non-existent legal arguments.
Because the letters look legitimate, they require thorough investigation, significantly draining practice time and potentially exposing clinicians to unnecessary dentolegal risk, says the BDA.
Lee Bennett, strategic complaints lead at NHS England, who trains primary care professionals on the complaints processes, said his team is doing work on AI: ‘Some patients are using it to write letters and respond to letters from practices. This is proving quite a challenge across the NHS and other government bodies. It’s making some of the complaint letters overly complicated, confusing and in some cases inaccurate.’
As a response to this trend, the Parliamentary and Healthcare Ombudsman, has put a statement on its website suggesting useful prompts as a way of preventing overly complex letters.
This is not just happening with complaints from patients – the BDA also say they are seeing more grievances from employees using AI.
Jacinta McKiernan, head of consultancy services, says: ‘Grievances are often lengthy documents, carefully drafted, and framed around multiple legal arguments. They frequently refer to legislation, discrimination law, and whistleblowing protections, even where the underlying issue may have started as something relatively minor and straightforward.’
But the BDA does offer advice on dealing with patient complaints. It advises practices to keep responses calm, respectful, natural, and grounded and not to use AI when responding. Dental professionals should look to prioritise human-to-human conversation over escalating a legal battle, and rely on robust clinical records to defend positions if a complaint escalates.
AI might have its uses, but this is one area where it might be adding work onto practices, rather than taking it away.