"Lord Chief Justice accuses doctors of being arrogant" 

  The Lord Chief Justice has launched a scathing attack
  on the medical profession, accusing doctors of
  arrogance and describing the growth in negligence
  claims against them as a "disaster area". 

  Lord Woolf, the country's most senior judge, said the
  spate of recent medical scandals meant it was no longer
  a case of "doctor knows best". He told an audience of
  lawyers last night: "I cannot help believing that the
  behaviour of those involved in the scandals betrays a
  lack of appreciation of the limits of their responsibility.
  They acted as though they were able to take any action
  they thought desirable irrespective of the views of
  others." 

  Lord Woolf's comments, in a speech given at University
  College London, will add to calls for a shake-up in the
  way doctors are regulated. 

  The Lord Chief Justice said complaints against doctors
  had risen by 30 per cent by the end of last year and
  declared that the future of the General Medical Council
  "had itself been called into question". 

  The case of Harold Shipman, who killed his patients,
  and Rodney Ledward, the Kent surgeon who maimed
  scores of women in botched operations, are the worst
  of the latest controversies to rock the medical
  profession. But Lord Woolf reserved his fiercest
  criticism for those he blamed for turning medical
  negligence litigation into a "disaster area." He said that
  the annual cost of such litigation was estimated to be
  equivalent to building, running and staffing one new
  hospital. 

  The scale of the litigation showed that the NHS was not
  giving "sufficient priority to avoiding medical mishaps
  and treating patients justly. 

  "It was clear to the courts that the hospitals and medical
  profession could not be relied upon to resolve justified
  complaints justly. The overdeferential approach is
  captured by the phrase 'Doctor knows best'. The
  contemporary approach is a more critical one. It could
  be said to be 'Doctor knows best if he acts reasonably
  and logically and gets his facts right'." 

  The "automatic presumption of beneficence" had been
  dented by scandals. Lord Woolf warned:"It is unwise to
  place any profession or other body providing services to
  the public on a pedestal where their actions cannot be
  subject to close scrutiny. The greater the power the
  body has the more important is the need for scrutiny." 

  By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent 
  18 January 2001

  "Independent" - English broadsheet.

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