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The Bolam V Friern Hospital Management

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The Bolam Test was first established in the case of Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957]. It is the ground case used in law to establish appropriate standards of reasonable care involving skilled professionals. Its looks at whether the defendant has lead others to believe that he or she is more able and skilled than they really are. The judgement that was passed that established the Bolam Test in the first place stated “A doctor 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 another way round, a doctor is not negligent if he is acting in accordance with such a practice, merely because there is a body of opinion that takes a contrary view”. This test has been supported in many of the leading negligence cases. Maynard v West Midlands Regional Health Authority, Whitehouse v Jordan and Sideway v Bethlem Royal Hospital Governors. (E-lawresources.co.uk, 2016)
The term reasonable person appears frequently in duty of care negligence

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