Dr Shipman’s review copy

In Manchester earlier this year, I happened into a shop that specialised in remaindered books and in resold review copies. The stock was small and miscellaneous; I picked up a slim paperback volume with the title Making Sense of the NHS Complaints and Disciplinary Procedures, published in a series called “The Business Side of General Practice.” It was edited by David Pickersgill and Tony Stanton, and it had a foreword by Sir Donald Irvine, then president of the General Medical Council.

It was not a title that normally would have attracted me much, even if, having been published in 1997 (an eternity ago in terms of NHS reorganisation), it were not …