Medical Litigation: Impact on Medical Innovation

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

There is indeed a danger that if the information that is published has not been carefully scrutinised to make sure that it is balanced and reflects faithfully the performance of the individual surgeon or the surgical team. I share the noble Lord’s concern that we should not just release information that has not been carefully examined in that sense, but there is a value, I suggest, to patients and clinicians themselves to have benchmarking metrics against which to judge performance.

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is a longstanding Bolam judgment—which to the best of my knowledge is still active—to the effect that, in the management of a particular patient, a doctor is not negligent if he or she has acted in accordance with the views of a group of informed medical opinion? It does not have to be the majority medical opinion so long as the individual has acted in accordance with the views of a well recognised group of other doctors.

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the noble Lord, subject to one qualification, which was the judgment in Bolitho, which held that a doctor may be negligent even if there is a body of medical opinion in his favour.