Dr Jan Wise, Chairman Medico Legal Committee
Speech for 2005 ARM
28 June 2005
The last year has been an extremely active and important year for the committee.
The Treasurer requested a saving from each committee and the MLC did not shirk this responsibility.
In the 2004-2005 session two committee meetings took place: we had 10 programmed activities with government bodies on a range of medico-legal issues, a further 5 regarding legal issues affecting the profession as a whole, 2 more with foreign delegations gathering data on our safety systems and approaches to litigation, and 1 with a Royal College representative on expert witness practice.
The committee has led and coordinated the BMA response to a range of government papers including the Department of Work & Pensions consultation on the Employers Liability Compulsory Insurance Pilot scheme, the Legal Services Commission paper ‘The Use of Experts: Quality, Price and procedures in Publicly Funded Cases’ and the GMC consultation document (3rd draft) ‘Doctors as expert witness – Your Role and Responsibilities’.
The Committee has taken action on ARM motions from 2004 concerning medical reporting and is now finalising a guidance document on professional witness work and court reporting that will appear on the BMA website. This will be linked to a BMJ Learning Module authored by the Chair on the difference between professional & expert witness work.
Attacks on the professionalism of expert witnesses were countered with letters written by the Chair, published in the BMJ and The Times.
These have been the obvious accomplishments of the committee in the last year. Harder to measure have been its more subtle achievements.
The fallout from Professors Roy Meadow and David Southall, as well as the 5th Inquiry into Harold Shipman, has created a hostile environment for expert practice. Attempts to impose accreditation were robustly met and a consensus towards voluntary schemes was formed.
Proportionality has been a buzzword in legal circles for over a year, preempting the Prime Minister’s recent warning that if the cost of litigation is not contained it will be severely curtailed. However, such measures are not necessarily in the interests of our patients. A series of meetings with the Civil Justice Council, insurers, claimant and defendant solicitor organisations, as well as expert witness bodies, has raised awareness of the difficulties doctors face both professionally and financially in this area. The tensions between our duty to the GMC and the Court, a doctors fixed costs and the operation of the predictable costs scheme for lower value personal injury cases is intolerable. A campaign to advance the cause of doctors is underway. Representatives from the committee have met with the Civil Justice Council, which advises Ministers on these matters, to examine a way forward with regard to the production and fees payable to doctors for medical legal reports prepared for third parties under the scheme.
I can assure you that steps have been taken to enable the BMA to robustly face these challenges and advance the Association over the next year.
Finally, I would like to publicly thank the members of the committee for all their hard work over the year, in particularly Barry Christie, the Committee Secretary, who has worked extremely hard and made the committee so productive over the last year.
