Call for controls on doctors

Gynaecologist Rodney Ledward: "Incompetent and conceited"

Opposition politicians have called for greater checks on doctors, following the recent examples of alleged incompetence and misconduct.

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, said the NHS needed more power to monitor health professionals' records.

He said that anyone guilty of misconduct should be removed from the professional register and prevented from practising again in any country in the world.

Mr Harvey also pointed to a lack of resources within the health service.

He said patient safety was being compromised because there were not enough doctors to cope with the current workload.

"The government's own figures show that they need at least double the 1,000 extra doctors currently being trained," he said.

'Can't get quality on the cheap'

Tory shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox told BBC 2's Newsnight that the General Medical Council should be given the power to investigate former doctors who are no longer on the medical register.

His comments came after it was revealed that Dr James Elwood, a 78-year-old pathologist, might have misdiagnosed more than 200 patients.

This would ensure that lessons were learned and that those who made mistakes were brought to account, said Dr Fox.

He also said that NHS laboratory staff, including pathologists, had generally been undervalued and that their professional status needed to be raised.

"You can't get quality on the cheap," he said, "We have to look at the very least at bringing them into the peer review structure of the NHS, so we can ... reward them properly.

"We need to make sure that we have got systems in place that evaluate clinical and lab practices so that patients are reassured that they have quality and so that doctors don't have their morale destroyed," he said.