Bolam Test
The test for professional negligence taken from Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957]: a professional is not negligent if their conduct is accepted as proper by a responsible body of professional opinion. The Supreme Court held in Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11 that the test does not govern a doctor's duty to advise a patient of material risks.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
In its press summary of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11, the Supreme Court explained the Bolam test as turning on whether the professional's conduct or omission “was accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical opinion, which could not be rejected” as irrational. Where a responsible body of professional opinion supports what the professional did, a claim in negligence assessed on Bolam principles will fail, whatever a court's own view of the matter might otherwise have been.
Montgomery confined the reach of that test. The Court held that a doctor's duty to take reasonable care to ensure a patient “is aware of any material risks involved in proposed treatment, and of reasonable alternatives” is not a matter to be settled by reference to accepted medical practice, because whether to discuss risk with patients reflects a doctor's attitude to a patient's autonomy rather than medical learning or skill. Once the question moves away from purely clinical judgment towards a patient's own values, the Court held that the Bolam test no longer applies: discussing a doctor's view that a particular procedure was against a patient's interests, the Court held that once the argument “departs from purely medical considerations, the Bolam test is inapposite.”
Example
In Montgomery, an obstetrician's failure to warn a diabetic patient of the substantial risk of shoulder dystocia during vaginal delivery was not excused by the Bolam test, because the Supreme Court treated the decision whether to warn a patient of a risk as a matter of patient autonomy rather than medical opinion.
Related terms
Official sources
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