LATE last month, Harold Shipman was convicted of killing 15 of his elderly
patients, and is thought to have murdered more than a hundred others. How did
Shipman, a family doctor in a small town on the outskirts of Manchester, get
away with his crimes for so many years?
It is the worst example of serial killing in British history, prompting the
government to announce a public inquiry and a rash of calls for new ways of
keeping tabs on doctors and their practices—not least from within the
medical profession. No sooner had Shipman begun his life sentence than…
