THE system for providing medical experts for family law cases should be overhauled radically because doctors are reluctant to participate in trials, the Chief Medical Officer for England has said.

Sir Liam Donaldson has suggested that the NHS should provide expert medical witnesses in cases of alleged child abuse and other offences. His proposals come amid unease about the role of medical witnesses after high-profile cases in which evidence by experts such as Professor Sir Roy Meadow led to convictions that were later ruled unsafe.

At present, individual solicitors take responsibility for sourcing expert witnesses, leaving a small number of paediatricians, child physiologists, psychiatrists and other specialists acting as witnesses for the bulk of cases. In 2004 the Government estimated that there were 5,195 delays in family proceedings, of which 12 per cent were caused by the unavailability of experts or by late submission of their reports.

Sir Liam, speaking at a news conference in London yesterday, said that a new centralised system could ensure that experts were available because many doctors had been put off by recent cases. He said that the number of cases where problems with medical evidence occurred was very small, but that change was needed, partly because young doctors were now too intimidated to take on the essential work.

“It has become increasingly difficult for courts to find doctors willing to come forward as expert witnesses, especially where child abuse is suspected,” he said.

Reasons for doctors’ reluctance included a lack of professional support, the time required to act as a witness and “the fear of being made to look a fool by a barrister” while under cross-examination, Sir Liam said. “We need to create a system that the expert witnesses and general public can be confident is of the highest standard,” he added. “These proposals are driven by my conviction that it is the duty of medical professionals and health organisations to safeguard children.”

The more structured system, called the National Knowledge Service, has also been designed to avoid the risk of reports for the courts being biased by the view of a particular individual, or a lack of expertise.

There would be an improvement in the standard of evidence, Sir Liam said, as groups of specialist doctors and other local NHS professionals come together to improve the quality of the service by introducing mentoring, supervision and peer review.

The cost of providing medical expert witnesses for the courts is £20 million a year, or about £2,230 a case, mostly funded by public funds — the costs being shared by the Legal Services and local authorities. Funds for the new service could be transferred to the NHS from government departments at no extra cost to the taxpayer, Sir Liam said.

His study was commissioned in 2004 after cases such as those of Angela Cannings and Sally Clark — both convicted but cleared on appeal of killing their children — in which evidence given by experts such as Sir Roy was found wanting. Days after Mrs Cannings was freed in 2003, Harriet Harman, then the Solicitor-General, announced that thousands of care orders in which expert evidence was decisive were to be reviewed by an inquiry that was examining the convictions of 258 women for murdering their babies.

Sir Roy was struck off the medical register last year after the General Medical Council ruled that he had “abused his position as a doctor” in giving evidence. He won a High Court appeal against the ruling this year, but the council won its appeal last week against blanket immunity for expert witnesses.

Ivan Lewis, the Care Services Minister, said: “For the sake of the vulnerable children and families whose future depends on legal judgments, we must secure the best possible medical expertise.”

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• Linklaters trounces rivals as UK's biggest firm
• Clifford Chance profits plunge 37 per cent
• Casual drinkers hit by spread of 'dry' zones