Mr Bolam was a voluntary patient at mental health institution run by the Friern Hospital Management Committee. He agreed to undergo electro-convulsive therapy. He was not given any muscle relaxant, and his body was not restrained during the procedure. He flailed about violently before the procedure was stopped, and he suffered some serious injuries, including fractures of the acetabula. He sued the Committee for compensation. He argued they were negligent for (1) not issuing relaxants (2) not restraining him (3) not warning him about the risks involved.
It is important to note that at this time juries were still being used for tort cases in England and Wales, so the judge's role would be to sum up the law and then leave it for the jury to hold the defendant liable or not.
McNair J at the first instance noted that expert witnesses had confirmed, much medical opinion was opposed to the use of relaxant drugs, and that manual restraints could sometimes increase the risk of fracture. Moreover, it was the common practice of the profession to not warn patients of the risk of treatment (when it is small) unless they are asked. He held that what was common practice in a particular profession was highly relevant to the standard of care required. A person falls below the appropriate standard, and is negligent, if he fails to do what a reasonable person would in the circumstances. But when a person professes to have professional skills, as doctors do, the standard of care must be higher. "It is just a question of expression," said McNair J.
"I myself would prefer to put it this way, that he is not guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art. I do not think there is much difference in sense. It is just a different way of expressing the same thought. Putting it the other way round, a man is not negligent, if he is acting in accordance with such a practice, merely because there is a body of opinion who would take a contrary view. At the same time, that does not mean that a medical man can obstinately and pig-headedly carry on with some old technique if it has been proved to be contrary to what is really substantially the whole of informed medical opinion. Otherwise you might get men today saying: "I do not believe in anaesthetics. I do not believe in antiseptics. I am going to continue to do my surgery in the way it was done in the eighteenth century." That clearly would be wrong."
In this case, the jury delivered a verdict in favour of the defendant hospital. Given the general medical opinions about what was acceptable electro-shock practice, they had not been negligent in the way they carried out the treatment. That passage is quoted very frequently, and has served as the basic rule for professional negligence over the last fifty years.
It is important to remember that the "Bolam test" is just one stage in the fourfold test to determine negligence.
First, it must be established that there is a duty of care (between a doctor and patient this can be taken for granted).
Second, it must be shown that the duty of care has been breached. This is where the Bolam test is relevant, because falling below the standard of a responsible body of medical men means that person will be considered negligent.
But in addition, third it must be shown that there was a causal link between the breach of duty and harm.
And fourth, it must be shown that the harm was not too remote.
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