There is no vaccine for fallibility. We all make mistakes and the occasional error of judgement. The doctors, nurses and other health professionals who staff the NHS are no exception. The consequences of their errors may be more serious than mine (which have included using the plural noun bacteria instead of the singular bacterium) but that does not necessarily mean they warrant deeper humiliation or harsher punishment.

A willingness to accept you have mucked something up and taking steps to avoid a repeat are much more important.

Admittedly the NHS hasn't always been great at this - particularly the first part.

In recent days, I seem to have spent a lot of time writing about investigations into what you might loosely call errors. One article concerned a General Medical Council case, involving a Glasgow GP - Dr Thomas Gilhooly, which questioned prescriptions he had issued to four very different patients. The hearing was told no-one was harmed, although one boy had become "drowsy". Another article focused on a Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) report about a patient, James Docherty, who was not informed his cancer had spread for more than a year.

I don't think there is much doubt that mistakes were made in both cases and that some kind of action was warranted. I did find myself wondering, though, about the way these two different situations were treated. Dr Gilhooly faced a public tribunal. He has to work under conditions for six months and, according to the evidence given, he has stopped prescribing a medicine he once championed. I am told some of his patients are now obtaining it from that well known source of medical expertise "the internet".

In contrast, the doctors whose failure to communicate effectively meant Mr Docherty's spreading cancer was ignored, are at best identified in the SPSO report as consultant one and consultant two. They face no obvious sanctions, save discussion at an annual appraisal. The response the health board gave when when Mr Docherty's family first raised concerns is criticised by the SPSO, but we don't know who was responsible for it or if they will do things differently in future.

I am not saying I want these NHS Lanarkshire folk to be dragged through the GMC investigation process - far from it.

It just made me think: Do we have a sharp-pointy system which scrutinises individual doctors, but cumbersome, difficult, demoralising, blunt processes when individuals want to raise concerns about NHS systems themselves?

One of Mr Docherty's daughters has spoken to me about their family's experience, largely because she is concerned about what happens to isolated patients without articulate relatives to question why they have not received follow-up appointments or been told about highly significant scan results.

At a time when health and social care resources need to be so wisely spent, and NHS staff are often dealing with an unprecedented workload, the priority must be tackling problems like this - which mean a raw deal for those who can't shout out.

Sadly there has been evidence lately of a few intelligent, successful people inside NHS Scotland finding fault with each other in a way which can consume a lot of time and energy. Really we need all that drive and brain power to go into getting things right.