Medical expert witnesses ‘should not scapegoat doctors’

Focus on individual's culpability played into blame-based system of accountability', says healthcare professionals body

Medical experts in cases involving doctors should have a mandatory duty to consider systems issues such as inadequate staffing levels to avoid them being scapegoated for wider failures, the Medical Protection Society has said.

The MPS, which supports the the professional interests of more than 300,000 healthcare professionals around the world, says medical expert reports focus on scrutinising the actions of the individual doctor even when failings are a result of the setting in which they work.