ABSTRACT
The conviction in January 2000 of Manchester GP Harold Shipman of the murder of 15 of his patients could not have come at a better time for the medical establishment. Following the scandal of the high death rates at the Bristol children’s heart surgery unit (culminating in disciplinary action against three doctors in June 1998), the Kent gynaecologist Rodney Ledward (struck off the medical register in October 1998 for gross negligence), and numerous less grievous cases of incompetence or corruption, the Shipman case provided further impetus to the drive to tighten administrative control over the medical profession (Abbasi 1999).
