There's lurking a deep-rooted problem in the NHS...groupthink

LISTEN to the patient, [they are] telling you the diagnosis". So said William Osler, the "father of modern medicine". It is a rule that is not always followed.

- Martha Gill

The principles and practices of medicine stand proudly on a vast evidence base. It is how patients are kept safe. Doctors are human and make mistakes - but that is exactly why their job is so formalised, full of protocol, double checking, constant reference to textbooks, studies and each other.

But within the system, and the wealth of evidence beneath it, yawns a very dangerous gap. Little has been done to study or mitigate against a very particular set of patient risks: group biases among doctors themselves. Yet these can hugely influence patient outcomes. Put any humans in a group and they become vulnerable to skewed thinking. Groupthink, outgroup stereotyping, discrimination, a tendency to overvalue opinions from the top of the hierarchy and undervalue opinions from the bottom - these are common group biases.

And we can add another, too: blindness to their own bias.