ABSTRACT
Clinical guidelines are multiplying. Their proliferation, and the related growth of evidence-based medicine, means that many areas of medicine and surgery, which attract the attention of civil litigators, are or will be governed by clinical guidelines. Increasingly it will be possible to plead just one particular of negligence: ‘Failing to follow guideline X.’ In such circumstances the guideline will, of course, be discloseable. If compliance with a guideline is said to exculpate, the reasonableness of the guideline will be scrutinised. Here, documents evidencing the reasonableness of the guideline-drafting process may become discloseable. If there are no guidelines, and it is said that there should have been, again, documents evidencing the decision-making process may be discloseable. Public interest immunity and ordinary confidentiality considerations may be good reasons for refusing to disclose.
