- Email: [email protected]
Judicial review in Scotland
50
Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine
Overall, a very good book - and I can't resist repeating from my review many years ago of a precursor of this volume, 'a copy should be in the glove compartment of every police surgeon's Rolls-Royce'! PROFESSOR BERNARD K N I G H T Professor of Forensic Pathology University of Wales, Cardiff, UK
Social support and psychiatric disorder: research findings and guidelines for clinical practice T. S. Brugha (Ed.) 1995. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 361 pp. £50. ISBN 0521 442 389. This book brings together a wide range of international contributors who have looked at the evidence that social support is important for physical and psychological health as well as for survival. The book states two aims: to enable those who have read it to approach the psychosocial aspects of the care of their clients or patients with a greater knowledge and understanding of the complex processes involved and to stimulate an expansion into formal clinical evaluation. I believe it achieves both of these aims. The book consists of four parts. Part one deals with the concepts and origins of social support. There are chapters from Camille Lloyd on understanding social support within the context of theory. She discusses some personality factors which may play a role in the stress-distress relationship and different coping and defence styles. Lorna Champion provides a chapter on social support as a developmental phenomenon. Chris Brewin writes on the cognitive aspects of social support processes, and Paul Gilbert writes on the role and function of social support from an evolutionary perspective. Part two looks at lessons from selected observational studies such as social support as a high risk condition for depression in women, the importance of social support among college students and teenage peer networks in the community as sources of social problems. Part three looks at lessons from intervention studies and details these. There are contributions about expressed emotion, measurement, intervention and training issues from Liz Kuipers, case management and network enhancement of the long-term mentally ill by G. Thornicroft, William Breakey and Annabelle Primm, a test of the social support hypothesis by Bryanne Barnett and Gordon Parker, and an intervention study on social network and mental health by Odd Stefan Dalgard, Trine Anstorp, Kirsten Benum and Tom Sorensen. Part four deals with intervention principles and recommendations, and has a chapter by Glenys Parry on social support processes and cognitive therapy. The final chapter is on social support and psychiatric disorder and recommendations for clinical practice and research. This book would make a valuable contribution to a library as it is up-to-date and provides some stimulating argument on an invaluable though difficult and often neglected area of research. VIVIENNE SCHNIEDEN Randwick, NSW, Australia
Basic forensic psychiatry By Malcolm Faulk. 2nd Edn, 1994. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. 371 pp and index. £24.95 ISBN 0 632 03321 5. Dr Faulk sets out to discuss topics of particular relevance to trainee psychiatrists working for the membership, but there is a good deal to interest police surgeons in this book. Ever greater time is devoted to assessing the vulnerability of prisoners during detention and questioning by the police. Dr Faulk is a medical inspector of prisons, so may be expected to have significant insights; if so, he is disappointingly reticent. In describing the ethics of forensic psychiatry and recommending a format for reports, he does show a clear recognition of the problems faced by doctors who have statutory duties to disclose information about patients without their consent. It is perhaps time that the duties of doctors assisting the police were codified: should the rights of a prisoner/patient to confidentiality be made absolute, or should the public interest be given greater weight? Dr Faulk's text was written before the General Medical Council published The Duties of a Doctor, but it is unlikely that he would have been helped by that publication wherein the peculiar difficulties of the forensic medical practitioner are scarcely given thought. He says, 'Medical skills should not be used for non-medical purposes.' Surely forensic psychiatrists, like police surgeons, do this whenever they take part in an investigation or write a report! Law and practice are moving onwards on most of the topics discussed. The Mental Health Act is in need of substantial revision or replacement after all the significant work (medically and legally) of the past dozen years; here, the historical development of legal and society attitudes to mental illness is neatly set out. There is no pretence at in-depth coverage of forensic psychiatry, but the book is a useful source on, for example, psychopathy and dangerousness. A strong feature is the list of good references after each chapter. There are some irritating misprints, but which book does not contain them? DR DAVID McLAY Chief Medical Officer, Occupational Health & Welfare Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK
Judicial Review in Scotland. By T. Mullen, K. Pick, T. Prosser. 1996. John Wiley: Chichester. 138 pp. £35. ISBN 0 471 96614 2. Applications for judicial review have become a more commonly used instrument for the aggrieved citizen (or often the stranger within our gate). The procedure is relevant whenever injustice appears to the petitioner to have been done to him by failure of proper procedure and where other remedies, such as appeal through the courts, have been exhausted. From time to time, the threat of action suffices. There are fundamental differences in approach, as between Scotland and England. In the latter jurisdiction, an essential preliminary is to seek leave, a step unnecessary in
B o o k reviews Scotland. This book makes interesting observations throughout on research already carried out in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; indeed, it is sometimes difficult to be sure (without a second reading) which system is being referred to. Emphasis is placed on the gate-keeping role taken by the legal aid authorities in relation to the vast bulk of petitioners, unlikely to have the resources themselves to pursue actions when the dispute so often concerns questions of access to social welfare. It is clear that the standard of work practised by statutory and voluntary advice agencies, such as Citizens' Advice Bureaux, varies, as does the work of solicitors. A striking feature is the haphazard route to justice, although the result for the petitioner who achieves a hearing is often success. The extent to which bodies, such as local authorities, modify their activities to take account of conduct branded as unlawful by the courts is, again, patchy. The subject matter of Judicial Review in Scotland may not excite much concern among the readership of Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, but it goes straight to the rights, duties and responsibilities that lie at the heart of our systems of law. This is a slim volume, quite easy to read, even for those not familiar with legal texts. In the UK, the status of public authorities as providers and arbiters is in flux; the need for individuals to question the decisions they take is almost certain to assume greater prominence, whatever the political colour of the next Government. The supervisory jurisdiction of the courts must be available to the disadvantaged: Goliath is no longer slain by a sling. DR DAVID McLAY Chief Medical Officer, Occupational Health & Welfare Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, U K
Marketing for the Expert Witness. By Catherine Bond and John Leppard. 1996. Bond Solon Publishing Ltd: London. 116 pp. £19.95. ISBN 0 9528982 0 9.
While it is always a pleasure to be asked to review new books, I am sometimes puzzled by editorial decisions concerning tL~" choice of reviewer. Why, for example, choose a provincial police surgeon, who only does sporadic expert witness work, to review a book about marketing for the expert witness? Why do this, when there are forensic physicians who work in metropolitan areas with far more experience and much healthier incomes from this sort of work? However, any doubts I had about the editorial wisdom of selecting a fledgling expert such as myself were dispelled when I read this book. It is written mainly for those who have become expert witnesses almost by chance and who are then bitten by the bug, seeing it as a productive way of using their skills and experience. While well-established experts will find much in this book to interest and challenge them, those who will benefit most are the practitioners wishing to expand and develop this area of their work. 'But,' I hear you protest, 'we are doctors and spend much of our time railing against the invidious introduction of the marketplace into the provision of health care. Marketing
51
principles may be fine for the high street retailer but surely they have no place in the lives of serious professionals like ourselves?' Well, if that is your view now, I can guarantee your conversion: reading this book will be something akin to your own 'Road to Damascus'. Catherine Bond and John Leppard have produced a highly readable short book that is packed with practical tips. Unnecessary jargon is avoided as they explain and apply basic marketing principles to the way we sell ourselves. I was swept along with their obvious enthusiasm and conviction and was quickly able to dispel any quaint notions I may have had that self-promotion by a doctor is rather unseemly. I found the section on defining one's product particularly thought-provoking. What is it that we are selling? It is obviously our skill and expertise. But what about the speed with which we complete reports and their lucidity and readabilitythese are also essential attributes of our product. As the authors point out, a customer buys a quarter-inch drill, not because he wants a drill, but because he wants a quarter-inch hole. The wise manufacturer, therefore, applies himself to how best one can produce a quarter-inch hole rather than just concentrating on better and better drills. The chapters on defining one's market and on how to reach and influence your customers will be of greatest value to the novice-expert, while the more established may gain most from the chapters on time-management and customerretention. Every section is full of useful hints and advice and the numerous questions and exercises that the reader is exhorted to complete provide personal insights that add greater significance to the text. After reading this book, 1 was left fired up with enthusiasm and determined to go out into the marketplace to sell my expert skills. It is an excellent publication and my only hesitation in recommending it is the fear that, if I did so, the competition would become too fierce. DR G U Y A. N O R F O L K Stockwood Health Centre, Bristol, U K
The public inquiry into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School on 13th March 1996 The Hon. Lord Cullen. 1996. HMSO: London. 174 pp. £20. ISBN 0101 338627.
This report is a forensic masterpiece and will become required reading for all those who seek to save the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom. Readers of this journal will recognize the importance of so many of its recommendations. Lord Cullen presented his report to the Secretary of State for Scotland in October 1996. It is worth repeating the essential facts, Thomas Hamilton entered the Dunblane Primary School on the 13th March 1996. He shot dead Mrs Gwen Mayor and 16 members of her primary class and inflicted gunshot wounds on three other teachers and three other pupils. Hamilton entered the school with four handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition. He fired 105 rounds with a 9 mm Browning self-loading pistol before killing himself with a single shot from a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver.
Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine
Overall, a very good book - and I can't resist repeating from my review many years ago of a precursor of this volume, 'a copy should be in the glove compartment of every police surgeon's Rolls-Royce'! PROFESSOR BERNARD K N I G H T Professor of Forensic Pathology University of Wales, Cardiff, UK
Social support and psychiatric disorder: research findings and guidelines for clinical practice T. S. Brugha (Ed.) 1995. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 361 pp. £50. ISBN 0521 442 389. This book brings together a wide range of international contributors who have looked at the evidence that social support is important for physical and psychological health as well as for survival. The book states two aims: to enable those who have read it to approach the psychosocial aspects of the care of their clients or patients with a greater knowledge and understanding of the complex processes involved and to stimulate an expansion into formal clinical evaluation. I believe it achieves both of these aims. The book consists of four parts. Part one deals with the concepts and origins of social support. There are chapters from Camille Lloyd on understanding social support within the context of theory. She discusses some personality factors which may play a role in the stress-distress relationship and different coping and defence styles. Lorna Champion provides a chapter on social support as a developmental phenomenon. Chris Brewin writes on the cognitive aspects of social support processes, and Paul Gilbert writes on the role and function of social support from an evolutionary perspective. Part two looks at lessons from selected observational studies such as social support as a high risk condition for depression in women, the importance of social support among college students and teenage peer networks in the community as sources of social problems. Part three looks at lessons from intervention studies and details these. There are contributions about expressed emotion, measurement, intervention and training issues from Liz Kuipers, case management and network enhancement of the long-term mentally ill by G. Thornicroft, William Breakey and Annabelle Primm, a test of the social support hypothesis by Bryanne Barnett and Gordon Parker, and an intervention study on social network and mental health by Odd Stefan Dalgard, Trine Anstorp, Kirsten Benum and Tom Sorensen. Part four deals with intervention principles and recommendations, and has a chapter by Glenys Parry on social support processes and cognitive therapy. The final chapter is on social support and psychiatric disorder and recommendations for clinical practice and research. This book would make a valuable contribution to a library as it is up-to-date and provides some stimulating argument on an invaluable though difficult and often neglected area of research. VIVIENNE SCHNIEDEN Randwick, NSW, Australia
Basic forensic psychiatry By Malcolm Faulk. 2nd Edn, 1994. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. 371 pp and index. £24.95 ISBN 0 632 03321 5. Dr Faulk sets out to discuss topics of particular relevance to trainee psychiatrists working for the membership, but there is a good deal to interest police surgeons in this book. Ever greater time is devoted to assessing the vulnerability of prisoners during detention and questioning by the police. Dr Faulk is a medical inspector of prisons, so may be expected to have significant insights; if so, he is disappointingly reticent. In describing the ethics of forensic psychiatry and recommending a format for reports, he does show a clear recognition of the problems faced by doctors who have statutory duties to disclose information about patients without their consent. It is perhaps time that the duties of doctors assisting the police were codified: should the rights of a prisoner/patient to confidentiality be made absolute, or should the public interest be given greater weight? Dr Faulk's text was written before the General Medical Council published The Duties of a Doctor, but it is unlikely that he would have been helped by that publication wherein the peculiar difficulties of the forensic medical practitioner are scarcely given thought. He says, 'Medical skills should not be used for non-medical purposes.' Surely forensic psychiatrists, like police surgeons, do this whenever they take part in an investigation or write a report! Law and practice are moving onwards on most of the topics discussed. The Mental Health Act is in need of substantial revision or replacement after all the significant work (medically and legally) of the past dozen years; here, the historical development of legal and society attitudes to mental illness is neatly set out. There is no pretence at in-depth coverage of forensic psychiatry, but the book is a useful source on, for example, psychopathy and dangerousness. A strong feature is the list of good references after each chapter. There are some irritating misprints, but which book does not contain them? DR DAVID McLAY Chief Medical Officer, Occupational Health & Welfare Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK
Judicial Review in Scotland. By T. Mullen, K. Pick, T. Prosser. 1996. John Wiley: Chichester. 138 pp. £35. ISBN 0 471 96614 2. Applications for judicial review have become a more commonly used instrument for the aggrieved citizen (or often the stranger within our gate). The procedure is relevant whenever injustice appears to the petitioner to have been done to him by failure of proper procedure and where other remedies, such as appeal through the courts, have been exhausted. From time to time, the threat of action suffices. There are fundamental differences in approach, as between Scotland and England. In the latter jurisdiction, an essential preliminary is to seek leave, a step unnecessary in
B o o k reviews Scotland. This book makes interesting observations throughout on research already carried out in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; indeed, it is sometimes difficult to be sure (without a second reading) which system is being referred to. Emphasis is placed on the gate-keeping role taken by the legal aid authorities in relation to the vast bulk of petitioners, unlikely to have the resources themselves to pursue actions when the dispute so often concerns questions of access to social welfare. It is clear that the standard of work practised by statutory and voluntary advice agencies, such as Citizens' Advice Bureaux, varies, as does the work of solicitors. A striking feature is the haphazard route to justice, although the result for the petitioner who achieves a hearing is often success. The extent to which bodies, such as local authorities, modify their activities to take account of conduct branded as unlawful by the courts is, again, patchy. The subject matter of Judicial Review in Scotland may not excite much concern among the readership of Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, but it goes straight to the rights, duties and responsibilities that lie at the heart of our systems of law. This is a slim volume, quite easy to read, even for those not familiar with legal texts. In the UK, the status of public authorities as providers and arbiters is in flux; the need for individuals to question the decisions they take is almost certain to assume greater prominence, whatever the political colour of the next Government. The supervisory jurisdiction of the courts must be available to the disadvantaged: Goliath is no longer slain by a sling. DR DAVID McLAY Chief Medical Officer, Occupational Health & Welfare Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, U K
Marketing for the Expert Witness. By Catherine Bond and John Leppard. 1996. Bond Solon Publishing Ltd: London. 116 pp. £19.95. ISBN 0 9528982 0 9.
While it is always a pleasure to be asked to review new books, I am sometimes puzzled by editorial decisions concerning tL~" choice of reviewer. Why, for example, choose a provincial police surgeon, who only does sporadic expert witness work, to review a book about marketing for the expert witness? Why do this, when there are forensic physicians who work in metropolitan areas with far more experience and much healthier incomes from this sort of work? However, any doubts I had about the editorial wisdom of selecting a fledgling expert such as myself were dispelled when I read this book. It is written mainly for those who have become expert witnesses almost by chance and who are then bitten by the bug, seeing it as a productive way of using their skills and experience. While well-established experts will find much in this book to interest and challenge them, those who will benefit most are the practitioners wishing to expand and develop this area of their work. 'But,' I hear you protest, 'we are doctors and spend much of our time railing against the invidious introduction of the marketplace into the provision of health care. Marketing
51
principles may be fine for the high street retailer but surely they have no place in the lives of serious professionals like ourselves?' Well, if that is your view now, I can guarantee your conversion: reading this book will be something akin to your own 'Road to Damascus'. Catherine Bond and John Leppard have produced a highly readable short book that is packed with practical tips. Unnecessary jargon is avoided as they explain and apply basic marketing principles to the way we sell ourselves. I was swept along with their obvious enthusiasm and conviction and was quickly able to dispel any quaint notions I may have had that self-promotion by a doctor is rather unseemly. I found the section on defining one's product particularly thought-provoking. What is it that we are selling? It is obviously our skill and expertise. But what about the speed with which we complete reports and their lucidity and readabilitythese are also essential attributes of our product. As the authors point out, a customer buys a quarter-inch drill, not because he wants a drill, but because he wants a quarter-inch hole. The wise manufacturer, therefore, applies himself to how best one can produce a quarter-inch hole rather than just concentrating on better and better drills. The chapters on defining one's market and on how to reach and influence your customers will be of greatest value to the novice-expert, while the more established may gain most from the chapters on time-management and customerretention. Every section is full of useful hints and advice and the numerous questions and exercises that the reader is exhorted to complete provide personal insights that add greater significance to the text. After reading this book, 1 was left fired up with enthusiasm and determined to go out into the marketplace to sell my expert skills. It is an excellent publication and my only hesitation in recommending it is the fear that, if I did so, the competition would become too fierce. DR G U Y A. N O R F O L K Stockwood Health Centre, Bristol, U K
The public inquiry into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School on 13th March 1996 The Hon. Lord Cullen. 1996. HMSO: London. 174 pp. £20. ISBN 0101 338627.
This report is a forensic masterpiece and will become required reading for all those who seek to save the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom. Readers of this journal will recognize the importance of so many of its recommendations. Lord Cullen presented his report to the Secretary of State for Scotland in October 1996. It is worth repeating the essential facts, Thomas Hamilton entered the Dunblane Primary School on the 13th March 1996. He shot dead Mrs Gwen Mayor and 16 members of her primary class and inflicted gunshot wounds on three other teachers and three other pupils. Hamilton entered the school with four handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition. He fired 105 rounds with a 9 mm Browning self-loading pistol before killing himself with a single shot from a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver.