Five rural doctors are calling for health service managers to be held accountable for bad patient outcomes if doctors’ requests for more resources are ignored, according to ABC News.

The NSW doctors, who went public about unacceptable deaths due to substandard care outback in hospitals as part of a Four Corners investigation in September, have asked the state Minister for Health Brad Hazzard to set up an inquiry into “postcode disadvantage”.

They want the inquiry to have the powers of a royal commission.

Key among their requests is a “chain of responsibility” where health service managers would be responsible for rejecting a doctor’s request for extra patient resources if something then went wrong, according to the ABC.