Samena Chaudhry, Birmingham

The latest white paper on criminal justice could mean that doctors and medical students in the United Kingdom are no longer automatically excused from being summoned for jury service.

The report proposes to abolish the list of those exempt and excused. Currently, this list includes lawyers, solicitors, barristers, vets, clergy, pharmacists, forensic science laboratory workers, doctors, dentists, and nurses and midwives in private practices. In future, they would be expected to do jury service if summoned, unless they had a good reason.

One area identified as being particularly difficult is that of medical students and junior doctors' training. This could be significantly disrupted if they were obliged to undertake jury service. It would be a particular problem if the trial were lengthy. In some cases, jury service could adversely affect training.

The proposal to abolish the list is one of a number of policies the government is pursuing as part of its aim to expand the pool of potential jurors and to ensure that juries reflect the communities from which they are drawn. The government believes that members of the community have a responsibility to undertake jury service if they possibly can.

The BMA stated that a number of issues should be considered before the categories of exempt and excused were abolished for doctors. Absence from practice could both jeopardise patients' care and place the doctor's colleagues under extra pressure as they cope with clinical work that cannot be deferred. In addition, teaching, training, and research work will also fall behind.

Deputy head of advisory services at the Medical Defence Union, Dr Peter Schutte, said, "We believe doctors are a special category and need special consideration. If they were obliged to be absent from practice, sometimes for a long period in complex cases, there could be repercussions for the delivery of health care." He stated that jury service could disrupt patients' continuity of care and that a doctor's absence from a practice could cause difficulties, especially in a singlehanded general practice or in regions of the country where it is already difficult to arrange locum cover.

The period for which people are expected to do jury service varies from a few hours to 10 days or longer, and a small number of trials can take up to six months. It is already an offence to fail to attend for service if summoned, and the review has recommended the introduction of a system of fixed penalties, subject to a right of appeal to the magistrates, in order to combat the high rates of failure to attend.

The document Jury Summoning Proposals: a Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment was based on Sir Robin Auld's review of the criminal courts system.