Professors MacQueen and Thomson have defined ‘contract’, within Scots law, as denoting ‘an agreement between two or more parties having the capacity to make it, in the form demanded by law, to perform, on one side or both, acts which are not trifling, indeterminate, impossible or illegal’. This definition reflects the fact that Scottish contracts are underpinned by consent, rather than by ‘consideration’. This, naturally, has the potential to be of great significance within the context of physician/patient relationships, particularly since the 2006 case of Dow v Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust acknowledged that these relationships could be contractual in nature. This observation is of renewed importance since the landmark decision in Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board, which found that physicians must ensure that they obtain full and freely given ‘informed consent’ from their patients, prior to providing medical services. In light of the present medical regime which requires ‘doctor and patient [to] reach agreement on what should happen’, the basis of liability for medical negligence, in Scotland, requires reanalysis: ‘To have a contract only when the patient pays is not consistent with a legal system which has no doctrine of consideration in contract’.

中文翻译：

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苏格兰法律中的义务、同意和合同：根据 Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board 重新分析医疗事故责任的基础

MacQueen 和 Thomson 教授在苏格兰法律中将“合同”定义为“两方或多方之间的协议，有能力以法律要求的形式，在一方或双方执行以下行为：不是微不足道的、不确定的、不可能的或非法的”。这个定义反映了这样一个事实，即苏格兰合同的基础是同意，而不是“考虑”。这自然有可能在医患关系的背景下具有重要意义，特别是自 2006 年陶氏诉泰赛德大学医院 NHS 信托承认这些关系可能是合同性质的。这一观察具有新的重要性，因为在蒙哥马利诉拉纳克郡卫生局，它发现医生必须确保他们在提供医疗服务之前从患者那里获得充分和自由的“知情同意”。鉴于目前要求“医生和患者就应该发生的事情达成一致”的医疗制度，在苏格兰，医疗疏忽的责任基础需要重新分析：“只有在患者付款时才签订合同不是符合没有合同对价原则的法律制度”。