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Showing results for tags 'Legal issue'.
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Content ArticleIn this letter nine charities and patient organisations write to Sajid Javid MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, urging him to reconsider plans to impose fixed costs on lower value clinical negligence claims. They argue that the proposals are a threat to both access to justice and patient safety.
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Content ArticleAn open letter to Brandon Lewis, the justice secretary, and the Sentencing Council for England and Wales warns that pregnant women in jail suffer severe stress and highlights evidence suggesting they are more likely to have a stillbirth. The signatories include the Royal College of Midwives and Liberty.
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Content ArticleThis blog by global law firm Clyde & Co describes the background to the new Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and how it will change the way that NHS services will investigate patient safety incidents. The authors offer an overview of the framework, its implementation and who it affects.
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Content ArticleIn 2015, the ruling of the UK Supreme Court in Scotland in the case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board fundamentally changed the practice of consent. According to the Judges in this case, doctors are no longer the sole arbiter of determining what risks are material to their patients. They should not make assumptions about the information a patient might want or need but they must take reasonable steps to ensure that patients are aware of all risks that are material to them. The Royal College of Surgeons has developed guidance on consent that sets out the principles for working with patients through a process of supported decision-making, and a series of podcasts that illustrate those principles in practice.
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Content ArticleFrom April 2023 the new Health Services Safety Investigations Body will require doctors to be candid about errors that have led to patient harm. But can medics trust that material given in this “safe space” won’t be used against them?
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Jeremy Hunt MP, Founder of Patient Safety Watch, outlines six priorities for the new Health Secretary, Therese Coffey MP. He argues that these patient safety priorities will help reduce elective and emergency pressures and save money.
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Content ArticleRisk managers and the insurers with whom we work have the greatest opportunity in healthcare today to improve patient safety. Our most egregious mistakes become medical malpractice claims and lawsuits. Some of these go to trial where the outcome is public; however, the least defensible cases are settled without a trial. Almost every settlement includes a confidentiality or nondisclosure clause (NDC). Such clauses become “gag orders.” Providers who could learn from the mistake of a colleague do not, and the same mistake is repeated, often many times over. The stories of these settlements are a rich source of learning, and it’s time to tell them—anonymously. No naming names, no disclosure of settlement amounts, no “blame and shame.” Stories are powerful, attention-grabbing, and memorable. Telling them is a unique opportunity to link the prevention of patient harm to the healing mission of healthcare and acknowledge the common wish of every plaintiff that “this won’t happen to someone else.”
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Bob Matheson, Head of Advice and Advocacy at the charity Protect, explains the case of Dr Chris Day and how it highlights the vital importance of reforms to UK whistleblowing law. Protect is campaigning for Reform of whistleblowing legislation in the UK. The author highlights loopholes in UK law that Dr Day has faced throughout his long legal battle with Health Education England (HEE). These gaps mean that whistleblowers lack certain important legal rights and protections, and this in turn may prevent individuals from raising concerns.
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Content ArticleThe distribution of malpractice claims among physicians is not well understood. If claim-prone physicians account for a substantial share of all claims, the ability to reliably identify them at an early stage could guide efforts to improve care. Using data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, Studdert et al. analysed 66,426 claims paid against 54,099 physicians from 2005 through 2014. The authors calculated concentrations of claims among physicians. They found over a 10-year period, a small number of physicians with distinctive characteristics accounted for a disproportionately large number of paid malpractice claims.
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Content ArticleDo patients’ and families’ experiences with communication-and-resolution programmes suggest aspects of institutional responses to injury that could better promote reconciliation after medical injuries? This interview study of 40 patients, family members, and hospital staff in Australia found that patients have a strong need to be heard after medical injury that is often unmet. Although 18 of 30 patient and family participants (60%) reported positive experiences with communication-and-resolution programmes overall and continued to receive care at the hospital, they reported that hospitals rarely communicated information about efforts to prevent recurrences. Opportunities are available to provide institutional responses to medical injuries that are more patient centred.
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Content ArticleOn 24 June 2022, the US Supreme Court overruled both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey and returned the question of abortion’s legality to the US. The ruling opens the door to additional State efforts to limit access to medication abortions, prevent third parties from assisting anyone seeking an abortion or punish women who end their pregnancy. This opinion piece in The New England Journal of Medicine looks at the implications of the end of Roe v. Wade beyond abortion, examining how it could affect other aspects of healthcare rights in the USA. The author, Zita Lazzarini from the Division of Public Health Law and Bioethics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, argues that the Supreme Court's ruling opens the door for state regulation of other healthcare decisions, including those regarding contraception, end-of-life care, care for LGBTQ patients and fertility treatments. She highlights that common forms of birth control including IUDs and emergency contraception are already being targeted by some states as “abortifacients,” and raises concerns that State laws declaring that life begins at fertilization will potentially endow thousands of frozen embryos with rights, imposing impossible burdens on fertility centres and their clients.
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Content ArticleDuring the 20th century the locus of care shifted from large institutions into the community. However, this shift was not always accompanied by liberation from restrictive practices. In 2014 a UK Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of ‘deprivation of liberty’ resulted in large numbers of older and disabled people in care homes, supported living and family homes being re-categorized as ‘detained’. Placing this ruling in its social, historical and global context, this book presents a socio-legal analysis of social care detention in the post-carceral era. Drawing from disability rights law and the meanings of ‘home’ and ‘institution’ it proposes solutions to the Cheshire West ruling’s paradoxical implications.
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Content ArticleIn this podcast, Dr Ramai Santhirapala interviews Professor Melville about the new GMC guidance around consent and decision making, exploring some useful tips for best practice and exploring some of the challenges clinicians may face around this topic.
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Content ArticleMedical litigation claim and costs in UK are rising. This study from Lane, Bhome and Somani analysed the 10-year trend in litigation costs for individual clinical specialties in the UK from 2009/10 to 2018/19.The authors concluded that addressing the issue of litigations is complex. Medically there are speciality specific issues that require attention, whilst some general measures are common to all: effective communication, setting realistic targets and maintaining a motivated, adequately staffed workforce. These, alongside legal reforms, may reduce the financial burden of increasing litigation on the NHS.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, consultant on workforce culture Roger Kline looks at the case of Shyam Kumar, an orthopaedic consultant who was seconded as an inspector for the Care Quality Commission (CQC). After raising concerns about patient safety, harm, cover up and bullying of staff with the CQC, his secondment with them was terminated. An Employment Tribunal has found that Mr Kumar's concerns were well-founded and that he was then victimised for raising them by the CQC. The Tribunal accepted his claims that he was removed from his secondment as a CQC inspector as a result of making protected disclosures, accepted his evidence, and at a number of points did not believe the evidence provided by senior CQC staff. The blog raises the question of whether the CQC would fail on its own criteria for being a 'well led' organisation on the basis of this case. It also questions whether the CQC can credibly hold NHS organisations to account on whistleblowing after its response to having concerns raised by Mr Kumar, one of its own inspectors. The author asserts that "the CQC needs to urgently demonstrate it will apply accountability to its own decision making, and lack of support for those raising concerns, and hold its own senior leaders (up to the CEO) to account for decisions which are contrary to its own published standards."
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Content ArticleImproving health care quality and ensuring patient safety is impossible without addressing medical errors, so it is important to accurately estimate incidence rates and implement the most appropriate solutions to reduce medical errors. This systematic review in the journal Frontiers in Medicine aimed to identify interventions that have the potential to decrease medical errors. The authors concluded that although many interventions have been suggested and tried, patient safety has not significantly improved. They call on policymakers to focus more on implementing selected interventions effectively.
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Content ArticleThis is the witness statement submitted by the claimant at an employment tribunal between Dr Chris Day and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. Dr Day's claim is based on his belief that the actions of the Trust irreparably damaged his medical career and had a significant impact on his job security and other areas of life. The document contains Dr Day's statement about the following events: Misrepresenting the substance of the protected disclosures Misrepresenting formal investigation findings Cost threat detriments Events post-settlement Impact of the case on Dr Day and his family
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Content ArticleThis is the report of an employment tribunal concerning claimant Terence Burke, who was employed as a caretaker for the charity Turning Point Scotland. The tribunal ruled that Mr Burke was a disabled person within the meaning of s6 of the Equality Act 2010, and therefore unfairly dismissed by Turning Point Scotland in August 2021. The tribunal found that Mr Burke was disabled as he was suffering from Long Covid. This is the first case of Long Covid being classed as a disability in an employment tribunal and the ruling is likely to have implications on future cases concerning employees with Long Covid.
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Content ArticleCompensation claims are a useful source of information on patient safety research. This study in The Journal of Patient Safety aimed to determine the main causes of surgical compensation claims and their financial impact on the health system. The authors analysed the frequency, causes, consequences, locations and surgical settings of compensation claims brought against the surgical area of the Murcia Health System between 2002 and 2018. The study found that the most frequent causes for claims were surgical error (42.4%) and treatment error (30.9%), and that the main surgical settings involved were orthopaedic surgery and traumatology (27.4%), gynaecology and obstetrics (25.7%) and “general surgery” (17.2%).
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Content ArticleEarlier this year in March, a nurse from Vanderbilt University, RaDonda Vaught, was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of a patient. In 2017, Vaught gave 75-year-old Charlene Murphey the incorrect medication. Murphey died as a result. Charlene Murphey’s tragic death highlights the failures of healthcare organisations and their leadership to be trustworthy as well as a fractured and weakened accountability system for patient safety in the United States.
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Content ArticleNHS Resolution received 172 claims relating to anti-infective medications between 1 April 2015 until 31 March 2020. Anti-infective medications include antibiotics, antivirals and antifungals. The analysis in this leaflet focuses on closed claims that have been settled with damages paid and concern an element of the prescribing process: prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, administering and monitoring. Claims concerning a failure to recognise that an anti-infective was indicated have not been included within the analysis.
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Content ArticleIn this British Journal of Nursing article, John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, discusses some recent reports on the duty of candour and shared decision-making.
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Content ArticleIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department for Health and Social Care (The Department) began an unprecedented programme of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) procurement buying items such as gowns, gloves and masks. It eventually purchased 37.9 billion items at a cost of just over £13 billion. Two years on from that initial procurement activity the Department is still having to manage many of the contracts that it signed. It has now received nearly all of the PPE that it ordered but it is in dispute with many suppliers over the quality of the PPE that has been supplied and is also looking at whether fraud was committed on certain contracts. Much of the PPE still resides in storage locations, both around the UK and in China, and the Department is looking at options for how it might now dispose of some of the stock that it deems to be excess. Responsibility for management of the PPE programme has now largely been transferred back to Supply Chain Co-ordination Limited, the NHS’s main procurement partner prior to the pandemic. This report makes a series of recommendations.
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Content Article
The NHS whistleblowing crisis (8 February 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Whistle blowing
Tommy Greene and David Hencke report on a number of worrying NHS dismissal cases in this Byline Times article. -
Content ArticleThis guidance is for Integrated Care Boards, NHS trusts, foundation trusts and NHS England. It supports effectively partnership working with people and communities to improve services and meet the public involvement legal duties.
