ABSTRACT
Quasi-law refers to standards to which health professionals are expected to conform contained in documents such as official guidance from non-statutory professional bodies, health service circulars and executive letters, including those which are not legally binding. The various documents have different degrees of legal force, depending on the manner in which they set standards, or their relationship to statute. They are usually influential in practice and are often representative of a responsible body of opinion within the health professions. Of course, whenever there is any query about whether a given medical procedure is negligent, or conforms with the legal and professional standards expected of healthcare professionals, the law looks to whether that medical procedure or practice was ‘in accordance with the practice followed by or supported by a responsible body of medical opinion’ or the ‘standard practice’ for that procedure. Consequently, these circulars or guidance documents would offer one form of evidence of what that current standard practice is. Of course, the mere issue of guidelines does not resolve the dilemmas for health professionals, since the guidance may not be representative of widespread consensus. There is now some doubt cast on this general principle as a result of the Bolitho case, although healthcare professionals acting in accordance with the practice or procedure followed by a reputable body of opinion will prima facie not be negligent in the eyes of the law (see Bolam v Friern Barnet NHC [1957] 2 All ER 118). The medical opinion itself, however, has to be ‘logical’ (see Bolitho v City and Hackney HA [1998] AC 232; [1997] 4 All ER 771; see, further, the detailed analysis of Bolitho in the chapter on medical negligence, see Chapter 7). The health professional should, however, also ‘take reasonable steps to ascertain whether the guidance they are following is the current practice within the profession’.
