ABSTRACT
Fear of civil litigation is likely to be a significant factor in determining clinical practice, and thus in ensuring patient safety. This chapter examines the role of English law in patient safety. It focuses on the changes in the substantive law and assumes that those changes affect the behaviour of clinicians in the ways outlined. Clinicians were worried that it would give non-medically qualified judges carte blanche to second-guess their judgments and the judgments of the experts called on their behalf. The common law analysis is more stoutly protective of personal confidences than Article 8. Once a piece of information is identified as confidential, it will be unlawful to disclose it unless the public interest defence applies. The English common law has been and continues to be a powerful device for protecting patients. Since the articulation of the Bolam test in 1957, which entrenched medical paternalism, medical law has moved the patient dramatically to centre stage.
