General Practitioners: Hippocratic Oath

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, the 2004 contract has been reviewed and renewed on an annual basis, and has proven to be a fairly robust document. The Government are not at the moment minded to change its basis. As for out-of-hours services—the nub of the Question—GPs can decide whether they opt out. Where they do opt out, the providers are inspected by the CQC and the local CCG.

[Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that although there are several absolutely admirable principles embodied in the Hippocratic oath, its archaic language is totally inappropriate to the 21st century? For example, I do not believe that the noble Lords, Lord McColl and Lord Kakkar, would be prepared to swear that they would not cut for stone—and many doctors would be unwilling to honour their teacher as they do their parents. Is the Minister aware that the full original Hippocratic oath is fully reprinted in the Oxford Medical Companion, which I had the privilege to edit many years ago—and of which there is a copy in the Library?

[Baroness Jolly]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I congratulate him on his editorship. I had to rely on Wikipedia.