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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Health Professions - From: 1985 To: 1989

This page lists 24 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.


 
 Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Storkwain; 1985 - [1985] 3 All ER 4
 
Bebbington v The General Optical Council [1985] UKPC 16
22 May 1985
PC

Health Professions
(The Disciplinary Committee of The General Optical Council)
[ Bailii ]

 
 In re J (a Minor) (Wardship: Medical Treatment); CA 1986 - [1991] Fam 33; [1990] 3 All ER 930; [1991] 2 WLR 140
 
Mahmood v The General Medical Council [1986] UKPC 12
12 Feb 1986
PC

Health Professions
The Professional Conduct Committee of The General Medical Council
[ Bailii ]

 
 Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Storkwain; HL 19-Jun-1986 - [1986] 2 All ER 635; (1986) 150 JP 385; [1986] 1 WLR 903; 150 JP 385; [1986] Crim LR 813; [1986] UKHL 13; (1986) 83 Cr App R 359

 
 Wilsher v Essex Area Health Authority; HL 24-Jul-1986 - [1988] AC 1074; [1988] 1 All ER 871; [1987] UKHL 11
 
Walter John Finegan v The General Medical Council (The Professional Conduct Committee of The General Medical Council) [1986] UKPC 59
18 Dec 1986
PC

Health Professions

[ Bailii ]
 
M v United Kingdom (1987) 52 DR 269
1987
ECHR

Human Rights, Health Professions
The protection of those responsible for the care of mental patients from being harassed by litigation is a legitimate objective.
1 Citers



 
 Lyons v East Sussex County Council; 1987 - (1987) 86 LGR 369; Times, 27 July 1987
 
Doughty v General Dental Council [1988] AC 164
1988
PC
Lord Mackay
Health Professions
The court summarised the characteristics of actions which would constitute serious professional misconduct.
1 Citers


 
X v Y [1988] 2 All ER 648
1988

Rose J
Information, Health Professions, Contempt of Court
Complaint was made that defendant newspapers were to publish confidential medical records of patients suffering Aids. An injunction was sought to prevent use of records given to a journalist by a hospital employee. The records related to doctors in general practice. The newspaper said it intended to do so in a way which would not allow identification of the doctors. Held: The injunction was granted. The fact of the confidence in the records meant that the claimant did not have to establish any further prospective damage. Detriment had been established immediately the records were handed over, since this would discourage other patients approaching AIDS clinics. One of the doctors had already been harassed by the newspaper. Once the information had been acquired in breach of contract, it was for the defendants to show good reason for its publication. They had not discharged that burden. Allowing the paper to pick and choose what it published would make a mockery of the section, and the story published during the continuation of the roceedings ahd clearly been in contempt of court. The court emphasised the importance of confidentiality for medical health records.
Contempt of Court Act 1981 10
1 Citers


 
Morgentaler v Regina [1988] 1 SCR 30; 1988 CanLII 90 (SCC)
28 Jan 1988

Dickson CJ and Beetz, Estey, McIntyre, Lamer, Wilson and La Forest JJ
Constitutional, Human Rights, Crime, Health Professions
Supreme Court of Canada - Constitutional law -- Charter of Rights -- Life, liberty and security of the person -- Fundamental justice -- Abortion -- Criminal Code prohibiting abortion except where life or health of woman endangered -- Whether or not abortion provisions infringe right to life, liberty and security of the person -- If so, whether or not such infringement in accord with fundamental justice -- Whether or not impugned legislation reasonable and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society -- Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss. 1, 7 -- Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-34, s. 251.
Constitutional law -- Jurisdiction -- Superior court powers and inter-delegation -- Whether or not therapeutic abortion committees exercising s. 96 court functions -- Whether or not abortion provisions improperly delegate criminal law powers -- Constitution Act, 1867, ss. 91(27), 96.
Constitutional law -- Charter of Rights -- Whether or not Attorney General's right of appeal constitutional -- Costs -- Whether or not prohibition on costs constitutional -- Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-34, ss. 605, 610(3).
Criminal law -- Abortion -- Criminal Code prohibiting abortion and procuring of abortion except where life or health of woman endangered -- Whether or not abortion provisions ultra vires Parliament -- Whether or not abortion provisions infringe right to life, liberty and security of the person -- If so, whether or not such infringement in accord with fundamental justice -- Whether or not impugned legislation reasonable and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Criminal law -- Juries -- Address to jury advising them to ignore law as stated by judge -- Counsel wrong.
[ Canlii ]

 
 Janaway v Salford Area Health Authority; HL 1-Feb-1988 - [1989] AC 537; (1988) 3 BMLR 137; [1988] UKHL 17; [1988] 3 All ER 1079; [1989] 1 FLR 155; [1988] 2 WLR 442; [1988] Fam Law 389
 
Karni v Sweden 11540/88; (1988) 55 DR 157
8 Mar 1988
ECHR

Human Rights, Health Professions
(Commission) The applicant was a doctor who, on his return to Sweden, was entered on the list of those affiliated to the Social Security System which meant he could carry on a private medical practice and receive payment for treatment provided to those who might otherwise not be able to pay. New rules meant that he was removed from the list and so the investments he had made in equipment were lost and his practice closed down. The Commission decided that the loss of his affiliation did not amount to deprivation of a possession since he would, at least in theory, continue to practise with patients who would pay. But the Commission considered that 'the vested interests in the applicant's medical practice may be regarded as "possessions" within the meaning of Article 1PI'. It said: "The question of affiliation to the Social Insurance system was a decisive element for the running of the practice."
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]

 
 Taylor-Pearce (Oral Judgment) v The General Medical Council (The Professional Conduct Committee of The General Medical Council); PC 5-May-1988 - [1988] UKPC 4
 
Regina v Price (Herbert) [1969] 1 QB 541
1989
CACD
Sachs LJ, Fenton Atkinson and Cusack JJ
Crime, Health Professions
A woman went to consult the defendant, a doctor, as she thought she was pregnant and did not wish to have the child. It was common ground that she told the defendant she thought she was some three months pregnant, that she desired not to have the child and that there was talk of going to Harley Street if there was any question of terminating any pregnancy. Although she exhibited most of the classic symptoms of being pregnant the defendant apparently told her that he did not think she was. The defendant suggested that she should be fitted with a Gynekoil, an IUD, according to the defendant, because she was frightened of becoming pregnant, and according to the woman, to procure an abortion. Two days later, the coil was inserted. The following day the woman went to a police surgeon who concluded she was pregnant and would shortly miscarry which she did on the following day, the foetus being some ten weeks old. The defendant was convicted by the jury of using an instrument – the Gynekoil – with intent to procure a miscarriage, contrary to section 58 of the 1861 Act. Held: The judge had misdirected the jury in failing to warn them of the dangers of convicting the defendant on the uncorroborated evidence of the woman – she being in law an accomplice. Sachs LJ: “The essential issue for the jury was, did the defendant at the time that he inserted the Gynekoil with the insertion tube know or believe that [she] was pregnant and accordingly introduce the instrument with intent to produce a miscarriage, or did he, as it was his case for the defence, think that she was not pregnant and introduce it for the purpose of allaying anxieties on her behalf as regards the future.”
1 Citers


 
Tehrani v Argyll and Clyde Health Board 1989 SC 342
1989


Scotland, Health Professions

1 Citers


 
W v Egdell [1989] 1 All ER 1089
1989

Scott J
Health Professions, Information
A psychiatrist instructed on behalf of a detainee in a secure hospital to carry out an examination of him was entitled in the exercise of a public duty to disclose to the authorities responsible for his future management the results of his assessment (which were indicative of the detainee presenting a continuing danger) and that any duty of confidence was subordinate to that. The public interest in the circumstances outweighed the doctor's duty of confidence to the plaintiff. The nature of a hearing before a Mental Health Review Tribunal is inquisitorial, not adversarial.
1 Citers


 
Association of General Practitioners v Denmark (1989) 62 DR 226
1989
ECHR

Human Rights, Health Professions
The contractual entitlement of Danish GPs under a collective agreement to indexation of their remuneration was accepted by the Commission as amounting to a possession under the Convention.
European Convention on Human Rights 6
1 Citers


 
F v West Berkshire Health Authority Unreported 3 Feb 1989
3 Feb 1989
CA
Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR, Neill L.J, Butler-Sloss L.J
Torts - Other, Health Professions
An application was made for a declaration that a proposed sterilisation of an adult woman who could not give consent would be lawful. Held: It would not.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR: "Just as the law and the courts rightly pay great, but not decisive, regard to accepted professional wisdom in relation to the duty of care in the law of medical negligence (the Bolam test), so they equally would have regard to such wisdom in relation to decisions whether or not and how to treat incompetent patients in the context of the law of trespass to the person. However, both the medical profession and the courts have to keep the special status of such a patient in the forefront of their minds. The ability of the ordinary adult patient to exercise a free choice in deciding whether to accept or to refuse medical treatment and to choose between treatments is not to be dismissed as desirable but inessential. It is a crucial factor in relation to all medical treatment. If it is necessarily absent, whether temporarily in an emergency situation or permanently in a case of mental disability, other things being equal there must be greater caution in deciding whether to treat and, if so, how to treat, although I do not agree that this extends to limiting doctors to treatment upon the necessity for which there are 'no two views' (per Wood J. in T. v. T. [1988] Fam. 52, 62). There will always or usually be a minority view and this approach, if strictly applied, would often rule out all treatment. On the otherhand, the existence of a significant minority view would constitute a serious contra-indication."
Neill LJ: "I have therefore come to the conclusion that, if the operation is necessary and the proper safeguards are observed, the performance of a serious operation, including an operation for sterilisation, on a person who by reason of a lack of mental capacity is unable to give his or her consent is not a trespass to the person or otherwise unlawful.
It therefore becomes necessary to consider what is meant by 'a necessary operation.' In seeking to define the circumstances in which an operation can properly be carried out Scott Baker J. said this: 'I do not think they are liable in battery where they are acting in good faith and reasonably in the best interests of their patients. I doubt whether the test is very different from that for negligence.
With respect, I do not consider that this test is sufficiently stringent. A doctor may defeat a claim in negligence if he establishes that he acted in accordance with a practice accepted at the time as proper by a responsible body of medical opinion skilled in the particular form of treatment in question. This is the test laid down in Bolam v. Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 W.L.R. 582. But to say that it is not negligent to carry out a particular form of treatment does not mean that that treatment is necessary. I would define necessary in this context as that which the general body of medical opinion in the particular specialty would consider to be in the best interests of the patient in order to maintain the health and to secure the well-being of the patient. One cannot expect unanimity but it should be possible to say of an operation which is necessary in the relevant sense that it would be unreasonable in the opinion of most experts in the field not to make the operation available to the patient. One must consider the alternatives to an operation and the dangers or disadvantages to which the patient may be exposed if no action is taken. The question becomes: What action does the patient's health and welfare require?"
1 Citers


 
Dr. Dilip Kumar Kundu v The General Medical Council (Gmc) [1989] UKPC 11
8 Mar 1989
PC

Health Professions

[ Bailii ]
 
Maximilian Rommelfanger v Federal Republic of Germany 12242/86; (1989) 62 D & R 151; [1989] ECHR 27
6 Sep 1989
ECHR
Norgaard P
Human Rights, Health Professions, Discrimination
(Admissibility)
[ Bailii ]
 
Carmichael v The General Dental Council (The Professional Conduct Committee of The Dental Council) [1989] UKPC 35
2 Nov 1989
PC

Health Professions

[ Bailii ]
 
W v Egdell [1989] EWCA Civ 13; [1990] Ch 359
9 Nov 1989
CA
Bingham LJ
Health Professions, Media
Bingham LJ said: "It has never been doubted that the circumstances here were such as to impose on Dr Egdell a duty of confidence owed to W. He could not lawfully sell the contents of his report to a newspaper . . Nor could he, without a breach of the law as well as professional etiquette, discuss the case in a learned article or in his memoirs or in gossiping with friends, unless he took appropriate steps to conceal the identity of W."
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
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