In each issue we investigate a hot topic currently affecting you and your community practice.

While regulation is common in many walks of life — health care, the food industry, the building trade, to name but a few — it has become a national hobby to rail against the imposition of standards imposed from above. The phrase ‘health and safety gone mad’ has become common parlance, and is cheerfully bandied about whenever builders are asked to put on a hard-hat, chefs are ordered to wash their hands, or you require a triplicated insurance certificate to put up a shelf in your lounge (the last one is an exaggeration, obviously, but you get the point).