Professional qualifications

Abstract

This chapter briefly outlines the qualifications, statutory and otherwise, for medical, dental, nursing and midwifery staff, and for pharmacists, opticians and professions supplementary to medicine. The formal question of qualifications, and the substantive question of actual ability and experience to do a particular job of work or to carry out a particular task requiring expertise, must be carefully distinguished. It is most unlikely that any hospital could escape liability for the negligence of a member of its medical or other professional staff on the grounds that it had done its duty in appointing a statutorily qualified person. It may be observed that even if circumstances did arise in which such defence could conceivably avail, it would be useless merely to show that a person with, say, the minimum registrable qualification in medicine had been appointed. In making senior hospital appointments, full regard is paid to the applicant’s postgraduate experience, as well as to appropriate higher qualifications. Given the distinction just indicated, relegating the question of formal qualifications to a subsidiary role in the overall question of a hospital’s responsibilities to patients as well as to other staff, this chapter simply draws attention to the broad features of the relevant legislation.