Abstract Background Health care incidents, such as medical errors, cause tragedies all over the world. Recent legislation in the Netherlands has established medical dispute committees to provide for an appeals procedure offering an alternative to civil litigation and to meet the needs of clients. Dispute committees incorporate a hybrid procedure where one can file a complaint and a claim for damages resulting in a verdict without going to court. The procedure is at the crossroads of complaints law and civil litigation. This study seeks to analyze to what extent patients and family members’ expectations and experiences with dispute committees match the goals of the new legislation. Methods This qualitative, retrospective research includes in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with patients or family members who filed a complaint with a dispute committee in the Netherlands. The researchers conducted an inductive, thematic analysis of the qualitative data. Results A total of 26 interviews were held ...