Disclaimer

The creators of the Electronic Encyclopaedia do as much as they can to make sure that what is included in the EEPD is in the best interest of patient care and good medical practice. However, with such complex website, it is impractical for the distributor to be legally responsible for all the material circulated by this means. This applies in particular to:

A. PATIENT INFORMATION LEAFLETS
Every doctor or other health-care professional in maternity or any other form of medical care is, as always, legally responsible for their own relationship to their own patients, and this will include any written material which they pass on to, or recommend to, patients under their care.

B. GUIDELINES and PROTOCOLS
Whether using an authoritative national or international source e.g. the RCOG Guidelines; or local protocols, only the most uptodate on - line version can be relied on. This is especially important for doctors on locum appointments. Any other source may well be out of date. In theory therefore all health care workers have a duty to check the most recent version on line whenever they do anything!

As a result, for an excellent example of the kind of disclaimer I would like to have written I refer you to the wording of the disclaimer used by the editors of widely acclaimed series of UpToDate booklets eepd/00_TOPLINKS/UpToDate.pdf
Their invaluable initiative may be reached on www.uptodate.com

In real life one tries to do one’s best, but, as health care workers, we sadly have to accept the fact that, far too often, those of us who suffer from legal censure will do so more by being unlucky than by being wicked. I just hope than anyone who provides medical care for me and my friends and my family will have the humanity to always put good patient care way above any fear of the law (or of management) Rupert Fawdry, General Editor (Updated 1.6.08)