received relaxant drugs or alternatively should have been warned of the risks. Not having received this, he took the case to court. The judges decided that the claimant is not negligent simply because their doctor shares a different opinion and that is not for a judge to decide which of two different approaches to treatment is correct and should be left for medical professionals. As they had collectively decided that the doctor was not in breach of duty, the House of Lords composed the Bolam Test "a medical professional is not guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art . . . Putting it the other way round, a man is not negligent, if he is acting in accordance with such a practice, merely because there is a body of opinion who would take a contrary view. This emphasised the importance of consulting medical professionals and also helped shaped medical negligence law.
The Case of Re B (A Minor) By Keira Cummings, Year 12 North London Collegiate
T
he case of Re B (a Minor) referred to a child born with Down’s Syndrome and an intestinal blockage that was likely
to cause death if the obstruction was not relieved. An operation was required for the child’s survival; however, the child may have died within a few months of the operation or lived another 20 or 30 years. The parents refused to consent to the operation, believing it to be kinder to the child to die than live as physically and mentally disabled. The child was made a ward of court by a local authority,
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