BMJ  2003;327:1109 (8 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7423.1109

Letter

Systematic clinical accountability is required

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—"Doctors," writes Hey "being human, will sometimes give flawed advice."1 In this, at least, he is correct. As a paediatrician he will well remember the Cleveland affair when there was so much medically flawed advice given to so many people that it required a judge to intervene.2 Lessons, alas, were not learnt.3

Characteristic of a medicopolitical line extant for decades, Hey omits mention of the continuing absence of doctors' clinical accountability. Unknown numbers of single clinical errors therefore, and sometimes serial disasters, continue unabated.

Echoing the chief medical officer, Hey agrees that we need to look less critically at the people caught in the spotlight, and more at the systems failure involved. However, driving a car through a red light is not a system failure, any more than driving through a clinical red light in the consulting room is not due to a named doctor.

Hey, however, like . . . [Full text of this article]

William G Pickering, medical practitioner

7 Moor Place, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 4AL wgpi@hotmail.com


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