Tests a Threat to Patients
PATIENTS could be forced to undergo unnecessary tests because of Government plans for regulating doctors, medics said today.
They could face more and more procedures – at a huge cost to the NHS – because doctors fear being struck off on less proof, they argued.
In February, the Government unveiled a White Paper setting out how doctors should be regulated in the wake of the Shipman Inquiry.
It said doctors should be stripped of the right to police themselves in the biggest shake-up of medical regulation in decades.
The General Medical Council would lose the right to adjudicate in fitness to practise cases when complaints were made against doctors.
It would still investigate the complaints, but the final decision on what happens to a doctor would most likely pass to an independent tribunal.
The civil standard of proof “on the balance of probability” would also be used in hearings rather than “beyond reasonable doubt”.
(c) 2007 Evening Mail; Birmingham (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.