A bill of rights has a fine, historical ring to it. The immediate concern raised by a Patients� Bill of Rights is that the struggling National Health Service will face the additional burden of being sued by patients.

A bill of rights has a fine, historical ring to it. The immediate concern raised by a Patients' Bill of Rights is that the struggling National Health Service will face the additional burden of being sued by patients.

The headline measure, the introduction of a legal guarantee that a patient will have to wait no longer than 12 weeks for an operation after being referred to hospital, is an acceleration of the current target of no more than 18 weeks until being seen by a consultant followed by a further 18-week maximum period to being treated in hospital.

The legal force of the new proposal will require health boards to pay other boards or the private sector to carry out treatment if they cannot provide it themselves within the timescale.

The question is whether penalising boards financially will be more effective than setting targets, which have largely been achieved, with fewer than 1% of patients missing the 18-week target last year. There is already concern among clinicians that the focus on waiting times is diverting resources from clinical audit of patient outcomes to progress reports on waiting lists. The Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, has continued the pressure applied by the previous executive to meet the waiting times targets with an insistence that this is a vital measure in allaying worry and stress for patients. That is true of serious conditions, but those waiting for minor or cosmetic procedures do not require a guaranteed timescale.

However, a change to the system which now refers patients back to their GP if they fail to attend, or turn down reasonable offers of hospital appointments can be seen as a step towards Ms Sturgeon's agenda of requiring more responsibility from them. The consultation on the bill fleshes out the concept of the "mutual NHS" which has become her catchphrase. For example, it puts an onus on patients to follow advice about medication, treatment and lifestyle changes, while balanced by increased rights to be given independent advice.

The best doctor-patient relationships are partnerships and the bill builds its legal framework on that ideal. It also lays the philosophical groundwork for a new system of redress which avoids blame and litigation. The idea of "no blame compensation" has been mooted for some years as the best way of allowing patients or their families to discover the facts when something goes wrong and to be paid compensation without having to sue. Provided it does not prevent legal action in cases of medical negligence, compensation for faults which fall short of that would not only provide effective redress, but allow those involved to make a genuine apology.

Too often, that does not happen because it might prejudice possible legal action. Yet most people who have suffered as a result of medical errors want only a simple "sorry" and steps taken to prevent it happening again.

Separate legislation would be required, but a system that encourages learning from mistakes instead of avoiding blame is one that should benefit us all.