I, too, wholly support the purpose of the Bill and the good intentions behind it, but I am opposed to the Bill itself. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group on cancer.
Parliamentary scrutiny demands evidence. The Bill is based on the false premise that doctors are somehow deterred from innovating because of a fear of being sued for negligence. I am not aware of any evidence to support that. Doctors can and do innovate without the proposed law. The innovative response to the Ebola crisis was one example of that. Lord Woolf, a leading supporter of the Bill in the other place, wrote in The Daily Telegraph in April 2014:
“What I do know about, from sitting as a judge, are the cases where doctors are sued for negligence because they have innovated in the treatment they offer, rather than following generally accepted medical standards.”
A member of the public then questioned him and asked him to produce evidence of such cases, to which he replied:
“I am not prepared to be cross-examined further”.
Lord Woolf did not cite a single case to support his position. Surely the pursuit of justice starts with evidence. With respect, that sort of judicial paternalism has no place in the modern world. Nowadays, the public expect and deserve better. I am informed by the joint editors of the leading text “Clinical Negligence” that they are not aware of any such cases. Doctors are sued for poor practice, not for innovative practice.
The supporters of the Bill need to provide evidence that doctors are being sued for innovative practice. They need to identify the cases in which that is happening. There cannot be any informed debate until they provide that information. So far, they have not produced any
shred of evidence to support their position. The Bill addresses a non-existent problem. If it is not necessary to legislate, then it is necessary not to legislate. Moreover, there is a duty not to pass bad law. This Bill, like the Medical Innovation Bill before it, proposes law that is not only unnecessary but would turn out to be bad.
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