Though more and more medical disputes are reaching the courts, English law still essentially allows doctors to set their own standards. Too often, the belief is that "doctor knows best." This book offers a sustained treatment of this issue, primarily as it arises in the hospital setting, but looking too at a range of therapies in different contexts. It argues for patient involvement in medical decision-making about their treatment, and critically examines approaches based on the assertion of patients' legal rights. As such, it provides a valuable analysis of the central areas of medical law...

Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1980 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

Though mental harm can be profoundly disabling, the law imposes strict limits on who can recover damages for it. In the absence of physical injury, compensation is not normally available for negligently-caused mental suffering, however severe, unless it constitutes a 'recognizable psychiatric illness.' Claimants whose mental trauma stems from injury caused to someone else are subject to arbitrary restrictive liability rules that dispense with established legal principles and cannot be reconciled with scientific advances. It is argued that the reluctance to provide redress reflects an enduring...

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences.
This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the...