BMJ  2007;334:450 (3 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39136.470359.AD

Feature

Will we be getting good doctors and safer patients?

Lawley, Telford TF4 2LL

Last week, the Department of Health announced its plans for reforming regulation of doctors. The BMJ asked some of those affected for their opinions

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

It is sad, but unsurprising, to see the changes in medical regulation suggested in Good Doctors, Safer Patients¹ being railroaded through unchanged despite the almost universal agreement among working doctors that they are fundamentally flawed (doctors.net.uk discussion forum). To quote Liam Donaldson, "There is little disagreement with the assertion that in 2006 every patient is entitled to a good doctor. Yet, there is no universally agreed and widely understood definition of what a good doctor is. Nor are there standards in order to operationalise such a definition and allow it to be measured in a valid and reliable way."¹

The white paper proposes annual inspection of doctors. If this were a proposal to screen for a medical problem, it would fail to meet almost all of the World Health Organization criteria required to justify its introduction.² We do not have a definition to measure the doctors against; nor do we . . . [Full text of this article]

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