[Quality assurance based on civil and penal law]

The term "quality assurance" primarily concerns the provisions of professional regulations and law relating to health service physicians. It would be too sweeping to regard liability or criminal law as normative parameters for guaranteeing quality assurance in the narrower sense. Nevertheless, along with expert opinions sought within the context of relevant lawsuits, court rulings under civil law and criminal law in effect constitute an indirect form of "quality control". As a consequence, many court decisions act as a standard for the future. Civil law is concerned with determining whether the patient has received the quality of medical service to which he is entitled; for all intents and purposes, the same applies to the judgement of medical treatment under criminal law, whereby all cases, whether civil or criminal, concern diagnostic and therapeutic practice in specific treatment situations, the organisation of treatment and the provision of information. With regard to these areas, a contribution can therefore be made to quality assurance by observing pertinent civil and criminal judicature.