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Higgs v Northern Regional Health Authority
(1989) 1 Med LR 1
National Health Service — Consultant — Contract of employment — Disciplinary procedure — Professional conduct and competence — Disciplinary action against consultant by regional health authority — Whether authority entitled to accept conclusions of public inquiry critical of consultant's professional conduct and competence — Whether consultant contractually entitled to further inquiry — Whether Ministry of Health circular on procedure in disciplinary cases incorporated in contract of employment — Whitley Council General Conditions of Service; Ministry of Health Circular HM 61 (112)
Roy v Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Family Practitioner Committee
(1989) 1 Med LR 10
National Health Service — General practitioner — Legal relationship with Family Practitioner Committee — Practitioner's basic practice allowance reduced by Family Practitioner Committee — Whether practitioner could challenge decision by action in contract. — Medical practitioner — General practitioner — Practice allowance — Reduction of practitioner's basic allowance by Family Practitioner Committee — Whether relationship between practitioner and Family Practitioner Committee based on contract or statute
Roy v Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Family Practitioner Committee
(1989) 1 Med LR 13
National Health Service — Fees and allowances — Ancillary staff — Claim by general practitioner for costs of employing practice manager who also acted as practitioner's locum — Whether claim established
R v Secretary of State for Social Services es p Guirguis
(1989) 1 Med LR 17
Contract of employment — Summary dismissal of consultant by regional health authority — Whether Secretary of State empowered to hear appeal by consultant — Terms and Conditions of Service of the Hospital, Medical and Dental Staff (England and Wales), 1971, paragraphs 190, 195, 196
Colman v General Medical Council
(1989) 1 Med LR 23
General Medical Council — Professional conduct — Statutory powers — Restriction on press advertising — Decision by GMC advising medical practitioner that advertisement of his services in local press could expose him to professional disciplinary proceedings — Restriction on advertising in “Blue Book” — Whether decision and restriction ultra vires — GMC's advisory role
Prendergast v Sam & Dee Ltd
(1989) 1 Med LR 36
Medical practitioner — Negligence – Causation — Foreseeability — Doctor's bad handwriting on prescription read incorrectly by pharmacst — Daonil dispensed instead of Amoxil — Whether pharmacist should have been put on notice that something was wrong — Whether chain of causation broken — Whether reasonably foreseeable that Daonil would be prescribed
Practice Directions
(1989) 1 Med LR 40
Costs — Taxation — Adjournment of appointment for taxation — Application for adjournment — Automatic adjournments not to be permitted — Notice to other parties — RSC Order 62, rule 30(1)
Sa'd v Robinson & Ors
(1989) 1 Med LR 41
Medical practitioner — Negligence — Standard of skill and care — Failure by general practitioners to recognize seriousness of thermal injury to child patient's throat — Consequent failure to visit child, to realize that admission to hospital was dangerously urgent, and to accompany parents to hospital — Child taken by parents to paediatric ward instead of casualty — Child sustained irreversible brain damage — Liability of general practitioners. — Medical practitioner — Negligence — Standard of skill and care — Failure by consultant paediatrician to arrange for anaesthetist in order to intubate child casualty suffering from thermal injury to the throat — Child suffering irreversible brain damage — Liability of consultant paediatrician. — Hospital — Negligence — Standard of skill and care — Reception of casualty — Whether hospital under duty to assemble medical team to receive casualty
In re C (A Minor)(No 1)
(1989) 1 Med LR 46
Wardship — Medical treatment — Terminally ill ward of court — Child born suffering from severe congenital hydrocephalus — Manner of medical treatment — Whether treatment to be that appropriate to a non-handicapped child or that appropriate to her condition
In re C (A Minor)(No 2)
(1989) 1 Med LR 51
Administration of justice — Wardship jurisdiction — Injunction — Restraint from publishing or soliciting information regarding terminally ill ward of court, the ward's parents, any hospital at which ward had been treated or any staff at such hospital — Whether injunction justified
In re F
(1989) 1 Med LR 58
Mental health — Medical treatment — Consent — Adult mentally incompetent to consent to sterilization — Whether necessary for court's approval to be obtained — Jurisdiction of court — Procedure to be followed for invoking and exercising that jurisdiction — Standard to be applied
British Medical Association v Greater Glasgow Health Board
(1989) 1 Med LR 74
National Health Service — Scotland — Crown proceedings — Health board — Interim interdict granted against health board by Scottish Court of Session — Whether action against health board amounted to “proceedings against the Crown” — Whether board entitled to immunity from suit — Crown Proceedings Act 1947, sections 17(3), 21 (1); National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, section 2(8)
Practice Direction
(1989) 1 Med LR 80
Practice — Service out of jurisdiction — Writ — Service permissible without leave — Methods of service available — RSC Order 10, rule 1 (1), (4), (5), Order 11 rules 1(1), (2), 5(1), (2), (3)(a), 6(2)(2A), Order 65, rule 4
Gregory v Pembrokeshire Health Authority
(1989) 1 Med LR 81
Medical practitioner — Negligence — Causation — Negligent failure to tell patient that amniocen — tesis had not produced result — Whether failure of communication caused birth of Down's syndrome child
R v Secretary of State for Health and another, ex p Guirguis
(1989) 1 Med LR 91
National Health Service — Contract of employment — Terms and conditions — Summary dismissal of consultant by regional health authority — Whether Secretary of State empowered to hear appeal by consultant — Whether term could be implied into contract of employment — Terms and Conditions of Service of the Hospital, Medical and Dental Staff (England and Wales), 1971, paragraphs 190, 195,196,197
Lanford v General Medical Council
(1989) 1 Med LR 94
Medical practitioner — Professional conduct — Disciplinary proceedings — Probative value of evidence before Professional Conduct Committee of General Medical Council — Similar facts rule Charge of serious professional misconduct against general practitioner based on two separate complaints alleging obscene language and improper behaviour — Complainants” evidence strikingly similar with regard to language but not behaviour — Professional Conduct Committee advised by legal assessor that evidence of each complainant was capable of amounting to corroboration of the other's account — Onus and standard of proof — Whether legal adviser had misdirected committee — Whether complaints should have been heard separately — Whether incidents should each have been made the subject of a separate charge of professional misconduct
R v NHS Tribunal ex p City and East London Family Practitioner Committee
(1989) 1 Med LR 99
Judicial review — National Health Service Tribunal — Representation made by family practitioner committee — National Health Service (Service Committees and Tribunal) Regulations 1974 (SI 1974/455) — Whether tribunal entitled to take into account earlier finding of family practitioner committee
Ludlow v Swindon HA
(1989) 1 Med LR 104
Professional liability — Anaesthetist — Duty of care — Res ipsa loquitur — Allegation of acute sequential awareness by patient during caesarian operation — Allegation that patient was not properly anaesthetized during operation — Burden of proof — Degree of patient's awareness — Whether patient had established that anaesthetic mixture did not contain halothane at period of birth — Whether doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applicable
R v Merseyside Mental Health Review Tribunal
(1989) 1 Med LR 110
Mental disorder — Offender — Discharge — Hospital order and restriction order without limit of time — Patient's application for discharge to Mental Health Review Tribunals — Finding by tribunals that patient not suffering from mental disorder but appropriate for him to remain liable to be recalled to hospital — Conditional discharge granted — Whether tribunals obliged to grant absolute discharge — Whether applicant remained a “patient” — Mental Health Act 1983, sections 1(2), 37(2), 41(1)(2)(3), 72(1)(b)(i)(ii), 73(1)(a)(2), 75(2)(3)
Gardiner v Mounfield
(1990) 1 Med LR 205
Professional liability — Medical negligence — Obstetrician and gynaecologist — Failure to diagnose pregnancy — Whether negligent to dismiss possibility of pregnancy
Fitzsimmons v Northumberland Health Authority
(1990) 1 Med LR 208
Negligence — Nursing practice — Safe system of working — Foreseeability of risk — Back injury to auxiliary nurse while moving spastic patient with student nurse — Whether foreseeable that patient's legs would buckle and student nurse would withdraw support — Training and practical instruction in respect of moving patients who are paralysed or unable to help themselves due to physical defect — Whether hoist should have been used — Whether three nurses should have been deployed
Scott v Bloomsbury Health Authority
(1990) 1 Med LR 214
Professional liability — Spinal injury — Subsequent long — term deterioration — Whether negligent not to order myelogram and proceed to spinal surgery
R v Secretary of State ex p Spencer
(1990) 1 Med LR 225
Judical review — General medical practitioner — Terms of service — Whether family practitioner committee entitled to impose condition limiting use of deputizing service
Colman v General Medical Council
(1990) 1 Med LR 241
General Medical Council — Professional conduct — Statutory powers — Restriction on press advertising — Decision by GMC advising medical practitioner that advertisement of his services in local press could expose him to professional disciplinary proceedings — Restriction on advertising in “Blue Book” — Whether decision and restriction ultra vires — GMC's advisory role
Locke v Camberwell Health Authority
(1990) 1 Med LR 253
Practice — Costs — Medical negligence action — alleged failure by plaintiff's solicitor to conduct proceedings with reasonable competence — Inconsistent opinions by plaintiff's medical expert -Duty on plaintiff's solicitor to ensure that hospital records examined by counsel — Personal liability of solicitor for costs — Rules of the Supreme Court, Order 62 rule 11