Negligence (GMC outlines)

Patients are entitled to expect their doctors to provide and maintain a good standard of medical care. This includes - a) conscientious assessment of history, symptoms and signs of a patient's condition b) sufficiently thorough professional attention, examination and, where necessary, diagnostic investigation c) competent and considerate professional management d) appropriate and prompt action upon evidence suggesting the existence of a condition requiring urgent medical intervention; and e) readiness where circumstances so warrant, to consult appropriate professional colleagues.

Where doctors are found short of that standard, it may be necessary in the public interest to remove them from practice, but it is also in the public interest to improve the doctor's standard of knowledge and skills (GMC 1991).