The Curmudgeon

And, as usual, when the dust finally settles, it is us - the taxpayers - who will pick up the bill.

Now I don't know who decided which are the high and which are the low professions (perhaps higher professionals themselves?) but this particular spat is between those hard working, starving lawyers and the hard working, starving hospital doctors.

You see, the former just love to sue the latter if they do something wrong under the immense pressure of working for our crumbling National Health Service.

This costs the dear old NHS tens of millions of pounds every year which could be better spent on cancer operations and the like. But believe it or not (ha, ha) more than half of that bill goes in legal fees.

The fact that these negligence cases take an average of more than five years to settle does not seem to worry the legal profession one jot: why should it, when solicitors and barristers are in most cases paid by the hour?

What happens in those five long years to the morale of a poor doctor who may, or may not, have made some mistake is also dismissed as unimportant.

So the lawyers are very cross indeed because the Government is thinking of creating a "tariff" of damages awards for the unfortunate victims of botched operations.

This means the victims would get their compensation quicker, which would no doubt be a boon to those unfortunates who might be permanently disabled. But it would also cut out the "middle man" - in other words the lawyers.

This is upsetting the learned gentleman and ladies no end so they have accused the Government of wanting to introduce the scheme so that victims will get less.

This, the politicians (another higher profession?) deny, saying the only savings will be made on the legal bill.

So, no doubt, this row will run and run because the opportunities for obfuscation, delay and downright bloody-mindedness are legion with two such groups of specialists in these fields at odds.

Now, of course, no one wants to see operations going wrong, least of all the medics. It is a tragedy when people suffer long-term harm by the mistakes of other people who are supposed to make them better.

But doctors are, after all, human. Human beings make mistakes - particularly when they are working under enormous stress and, in some hospitals, with inadequate equipment.

To have a spectre in a wig wielding a big, big cash box leaning over your shoulder when you are working on someone's vital innards can hardly be conducive to good medical practice.

This does not seem to worry the learned gentlemen, either.

They need even more cash these days to pay for those expensive TV ads trawling the networks for customers who want to sue someone for something.

Is there anyone out there who has ever tried to sue a solicitor for malpractice? It is so difficult that even their trade union, the Law Society, is embarrassed and is trying to change the rules.

The law is an ass, says Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist. But then that was written by Charles Dickens who, as a journalist, was a member of the lowest of low professions.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.