Job: Research Associate in negligence, Cambridge

An excellent opportunity has arisen to work at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, on a two year collaborative research project involving the Faculty’s Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Science and THIS Institute.

 

Specifically, applications are invited for a Research Associate or Senior Research Associate to conduct research on the law of negligence and communicating differential diagnosis to patients.

The project will investigate and critically evaluate the scope of a physician’s legal duties to record and communicate the uncertainty that is inherent in the process of developing a patient’s ‘differential diagnosis’. The aim of the project is not only to clarify how the law shapes the development and communication of differential diagnoses, but also assess whether and how the law in this area should be reformed.

The position requires a degree in law, with expertise in tort law. In addition, it requires a doctoral degree or equivalent work experience.

The funds for this post are available for two years from the start date.

Consultation: GMC Consent guidance

We’re consulting on our revised Consent guidance which outlines what doctors should consider when discussing treatment and care with patients. 

The updated guidance focuses on the importance of communication, personalised conversations, and doctors and patients making decisions about treatment and care together.

We’ve restructured it and made it clearer, so it’s easier for doctors to apply in practice. And we’ve provided more advice, including steps to follow when making decisions in different circumstances.

The guidance reflects the law, policy and healthcare settings in all four countries of the UK.

Tell us what matters to you

The consultation is open until Wednesday 23 January 2019 and there are several ways you can take part.

• Full questionnaire for medical and lay professionals (approx #22 questions) – aimed at those with a detailed working knowledge of the policy, practice and law around consent. You’ll need to read the guidance to answer the questions.
• A survey for doctors and other healthcare professionals (approx #21 questions) – aimed at those with a detailed working knowledge of the issues, but who may not have time to respond to the full questionnaire.
• A survey for patients, carers and members of the public (approx #14 questions)– aimed at those who may not be familiar with our guidance, but will have views on good consent practice.

Accessing the consultation in other languages and formats

We can provide paper copies and other formats (such as large print) on request. The consultation documents are also available in Welsh.

Please email marketingcommunications@gmc-uk.org for further details.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the review or consultation please contact our Consent review team on gmcconsent@gmc-uk.org or 020 7189 5404.

If you’d like to submit a consultation response in hardcopy please send it to: Consent Review Team, General Medical Council, 350 Euston Road, London NW1 3JN.

What have we done so far?

We’ve gathered evidence through our own and commissioned research as well as engagement, to understand what issues to address.

We’ve worked with our Task and Finish group who provided expert input from a legal, medical, health, social care and patient perspective to review the evidence.

We’ve now redrafted our guidance to:

• focus on how doctors can support patient decision making and involve patients in decisions about their care as far as possible
• focus on the importance of doctors finding out what is meaningful for their patients and helping them explore the different options
• include practical suggestions and examples to explain how the principles apply
• make it more accessible by referring less to the law and more to the principles on which the law is based.

Why are we updating the guidance?

Good consent practice is at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship, but we know it’s sometimes challenging to get this right. Our guidance sets out good practice principles for making decisions about care, from the treatment of minor conditions to major interventions with significant risks or side effects.

Since it was last published in 2008, there have been shifts in the legal, policy and workplace environments. Doctors are telling us that increasing pressures and demands on their practice can make it difficult to seek and record a patient’s consent in line with our guidance and the law.

We want to support doctors and patients to have meaningful conversations and to make shared decisions. Therefore we have updated the guidance to ensure that it is still clear and helpful, relevant to doctors’ needs, and consistent with the law.

We want the final guidance to be shaped by doctors on the medical front line, patients, and healthcare organisations. It’s therefore vital that we hear as many views as possible.

Job: Research Assistant in Law and Healing Reflecting on English Medico-Legal History and why it Matters at University of Manchester

Job Reference : HUM-12583

Location : Oxford Road, Manchester

Closing Date : 01/10/2018

Salary : £26,495 to £30,688 per annum

Employment Type : Fixed Term

Faculty / Organisational Unit : Humanities

Division : Centre for Social Ethics and Policy

Hours Per week : Full Time

Contract Duration : Starting October 2018 until 30 September 2019

A research assistant is sought at Grade 5.3 to assist in the research funded by a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship which has been awarded to Professor Margot Brazier. No DBS will be required. The research is desk based and archival.

The research will focus on:

• Completion of my monograph Law and Healing: A History of a Stormy Marriage.

• Further research into legal and ethical ‘lessons’ arising from a critical analysis of the regulation of midwives in the 16^th to 18^th centuries and the prototype for codes of professional ethics to be found therein.

• Further research into the gradual rise of judicial deference to doctors and the era of Bolamisation from 1858 to 1998•

Conference: Patient safety, litigation against doctors and gross negligence manslaughter

Friday 21 April 2017

Royal Society of Medicine
1 Wimpole Street
LONDON
W1G 0AE

Improving patient safety, by means of a reduction of medical errors, has been a major focus of attention over the past several years. This one-day meeting will review progress to date and consider how further progress can be made. Speakers include Professor Terence Stephenson, Chairman of the General Medical Council and Mr David Sellu, who went to prison on a charge of gross negligence manslaughter.

The ways and means of turning back the tide of litigation against doctors will be debated as well as the appropriateness of the use of criminal prosecution of surgeons for “gross negligence manslaughter”.

Further details including the agenda and how to register are available here.

Seminar: Nervous Shock and the Chameleon Nature of English Judicial Decisions in Australian Legislation

IALS Legal History Seminar

02 Dec 2016, 18:00 to 20:00
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

Professor Mark Lunney, University of New England, Nervous Shock and the Chameleon Nature of English Judicial Decisions in Australian Legislation: Section 4 of the ‘Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1944’ (NSW)

This event is free but advance booking is requested.

Organised in association with the London Legal History seminar.

Workshop: Old Markets, New Markets: Health Law after the 2012 Act

Date & Venue

27 June 2013
10:30-18:30
School of Law Sheffield, UK

Workshop Summary

• 30 specialist speakers and discussants
• Access to papers and resources
• Time to network and share your research
• Lunch and refreshments included

Programme

Panel 1: International experiences of markets in health

Panel 2: Markets and market failures – a more domestic perspective

Panel 3: Impact on vulnerable groups

Panel 4: Capacity building post the 2011 Report (Innovation, Health and Wealth) and 2012 Act

Panel 5: Medical malpractice in a post-2012 context

Book your place on-line today

Standard Rate – £75.00 | Student Rate – £50.00

Radio: two-part documentary on truth-telling in cases of negligence and misadventure

Doctor – Tell Me The Truth

BBC Radio 4, Monday 20 and 27 February 2012, 20.00-20.30. I expect episode 1 will be available via the iPlayer shortly

Part 1:

Each year between 45,000 and 98,000 Americans die because of the treatment they receive in hospital. In Doctor, Tell Me The Truth, Professor James Reason discovers how encouraging doctors to admit their mistakes has improved patient safety. He hears from Rick Boothman and Darrell Campbell at the University of Michigan, the creators of a programme where doctors have to be open about their errors. They describe the previous ‘deny-and-defend’ attitude in which the hospital would stonewall any complaints made against them and contrast this with the present system in which investigations into errors can be started even before the patient comes round from their anaesthetic. We hear moving stories about face-to-face apologies from patients, doctors and lawyers.

Part 2:

In the second part of Doctor Tell Me The Truth Prof Reason asks whether the University of Michigan programme could work in the NHS. Peter Walsh from Action Against Medical Accidents tells him of cases where doctors have been prevented from admitting their mistakes at the insistence of their managers. He introduces us to ‘Robbie’s Law’, named after a boy who died as a result of medical malpractice, a piece of proposed legislation now being examined in the House of Lords which would require all NHS hospitals to adopt an open disclosure policy. Academics David Studdert and Alan Kalachian ask whether such a policy is legally enforceable or even desirable. Sir Liam Donaldson, a former Chief Medical Officer, tells us of his attempts to promote openness in the NHS and we hear from Robbie Powell’s father who tells us that his twenty year legal battle could have been avoided if the doctors had only admitted their mistakes and apologised.

Radio: primary care in England

Doctors in Charge

BBC Radio 4, File on Four, available now via the iPlayer

“Success of the Government’s proposed NHS reforms in England rests on family doctors. GPs will be responsible for commissioning treatment for their patients, and managing the £80 billion NHS budget. But how much do we know about the effectiveness and value for money offered by doctors in General Practice? Gerry Northam reports.”

Radio: NHS trusts ‘not complying with safety alerts’

BBC Radio 4, File on Four, Tuesday 16 February, 8-8.40pm, repeated 5-5.40pm, Sunday 21 February 2010, available after broadcast via the iPlayer or as a podcast.

From the BBC website: “Three-quarters of NHS trusts are endangering patients by not complying with safety alerts meant to stop fatal errors recurring, a charity says. Action Against Medical Accidents found that some 300 trusts had not complied with at least one patient safety alert despite the deadline passing. AvMA’s Chief Executive Peter Walsh said: “Lives are being put at risk.” The Department of Health said it expected all trusts to comply with the alerts and to “record and action them”. It added: “The department will shortly be issuing all NHS organisations a formal reminder of their obligations to do this.”

Under the patient safety alert system, the National Patient Safety Agency can issue guidance to NHS organisations to tighten procedures by a set time. But AvMA said that robust compliance systems were lacking in many hospitals in England. Figures obtained by the charity via freedom of information requests revealed that 200 trusts had not complied with an alert dating back five years.”