ALMOST 30 per cent of doctors in the UK who had direct experience of an incompetent or poorly performing colleague in the past three years failed to report it. One in three of the doctors who didn’t sound the alarm said this was because they were in fear of retribution.
The findings are contained in a new study published in BMJ Quality and Safety, a British Medical Journal title, which looked at the behaviour of UK and US doctors. The views of almost 2,000 US doctors and more than 1,000 of their UK peers were sought.
When it came to dealing with a colleague’s performance, almost one in five (19 per cent) UK doctors said they had had experience of an impaired or incompetent colleague during the previous three years, compared with 16.5 per cent of US doctors.
Nearly three out of four UK doctors (72 per cent) and almost two-thirds of their US peers (65 per cent) said they had alerted relevant individuals or professional bodies.
But of those who didn’t, one in three UK doctors said this was because they feared retribution, whereas just 12.5 per cent of US doctors gave this as their reason.
Other reasons for failing to report a colleague were also given.
Some 25 per cent of UK doctors and 20 per cent of US doctors said they hadn’t blown the whistle because they thought someone else was taking care of the problem.
A further 14 per cent of UK doctors and 16 per cent of US doctors said they took no action because they believed nothing would happen as a result of reporting the problem.
Somewhat surprisingly, less than 80 per cent of US doctors and 82 per cent of their UK peers strongly agreed that patient welfare should come before their own financial interests.
And not all doctors agreed that it was “never appropriate” to have a sexual relationship with a patient. About 8 per cent of doctors in both the UK and US didn’t conform to this view.