I FEAR 1 MUST HAVE expressed myself badly on the
subject of whether the names of doctors who are disciplined by the Health Authorities should be pub- lished. The point I was trying to make was that where a doctor is shown to have been criminally negligent, his name should be disclosed. But this, of course, begs the question: what is 'criminally negligent'? A doctor who for no good reason refuses to go out to sec a patient, with the result that the patient dies, is criminally negligent in the colloquial sense of the term; but not, I take it, in the legal sense. If the present system of dispensing justice through administrative tribunals did not exist, Parliament would certainly have to consider how to deal with such cases in the ordinary courts: in a sense, the existence of the tribunals does exempt doctors from the ordinary legal sanctions. My point is not that this quasi-legal structure is bad, but simply that if it is to hold public respect, it must not appear to be shielding mem- bers of the profession from the conse- quences of their anti-social actions.
PHAROS
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