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Found 562 results
  1. Content Article
    In this blog, Paul Whiteing, Chief Executive of Action Against Medical Accidents (AvMA), highlights how proposed changes to the UK legal system will affect people who have been harmed by healthcare and their families' access to justice. He describes the negative impact of legislation that would make claims less than £100,000 subject to a fixed cost regime. Paul writes, "The consequence of a fixed cost regime is that where the patient wins their case against the healthcare provider, the costs awarded will be capped at the rates set by Parliament." Related reading Read our Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Paul.
  2. Content Article
    In this blog, specialist medical negligence solicitor Maria Panteli discusses the upcoming investigation and possible inquests into deaths relating to jailed breast surgeon Ian Paterson. She looks at what families of those affected by his treatment can expect and covers topics including:What happens at a Pre-Inquest Review?Who takes part in an inquest?How can the medical negligence solicitors help?
  3. Content Article
    Background to the independent review by Lewisham and Greenwich into Dr Chris Day's whistleblowing case.
  4. Content Article
    Data from NHS Resolution indicates that the number of claims with a primary cause of ‘Fail to warn - Informed consent’ have increased from 128 to 248 claims per year in 2011–2012 and 2021–2022 respectively. This letter in the British Journal of Surgery highlights the impact of failures in both the process and documentation of informed consent. The writers call for further research to investigate unwarranted variation in claims and develop processes to standardise and improve the quality of consent.
  5. Content Article
    This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them.  Paul talks to us about how AvMA helps people who have suffered direct or indirect medical harm and to help them to seek justice, why upcoming changes to the legal system could restrict access to clinical negligence claims and the importance of compassionate engagement in improving harmed patients’ experiences of the healthcare system.
  6. Content Article
    If you are faced with a Care Quality Commission (CQC) criminal investigation into you or your service it is vital that you take prompt action. In this article, Gemma Nicholas consider CQC’s criminal enforcement powers, how the CQC uses its powers and action providers can take.
  7. Content Article
    With the Supreme Court having recently heard the Worcestershire appeal on local authority responsibility for section 117 aftercare, Bevan Brittan consider the current legal framework for health responsibility.
  8. Content Article
    A new report presents the preliminary findings of the Care Post-Roe Study, and shows how US healthcare providers have been unable to provide the standard of care in states with abortion bans since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade ten months ago, leading to harm and negative health outcomes for patients. The report shows that healthcare providers have seen increased morbidity, exacerbated pregnancy complications, an inability to provide time-sensitive care, and increased delays in obtaining care for patients in states with abortion bans. This has impacted both patients and providers and has deepened the existing inequities in the health care system for people of colour.
  9. Content Article
    Approximately 8% of US doctors experience a malpractice claim annually. Most malpractice claims are a result of adverse events, which may or may not be a result of medical errors. However, not all medicolegal cases are the result of medical errors or negligence, but rather, may be associated with the individual nature of the patient-doctor relationship. The strength of this relationship may be partially determined by a physician’s emotional intelligence (EI), or his or her ability to monitor and regulate his or her emotions as well as the emotions of others. This review evaluates the role of EI in developing the patient-physician relationship and how EI may influence patient decisions to pursue medicolegal action.
  10. Content Article
    Court of Protection Handbook: a user’s guide addresses in detail the practice and processes of the Court of Protection n terms that are aimed not only at lawyers but also to the increasing numbers of people who either by choice or otherwise are involved in proceedings before the Court of Protection without legal help.
  11. News Article
    Registered nurses at Alhambra Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, voted overwhelmingly in favor of ratifying a new three-year contract yesterday, winning protections to improve patient safety and nurse retention.. The collective bargaining agreement was the result of an almost six-month fight, which included an informational picket for patient safety and multiple other actions. So Hee Park, an ICU nurse at Alhambra, said, “We are so thrilled that after months of negotiations, we have ratified an agreement that provides substantial measures to ensure nurses feel supported and can continue to provide optimal patient care, as well as numerous provisions that will improve recruitment and retention of experienced nurses.” The contract includes several highlights that will help nurses create better outcomes for their patients, such as provisions for ensuring hospital compliance with existing registered nurse-to-patient safe staffing laws. The agreement also establishes a new Infectious Disease Task Force that will offer new protections against communicable diseases and guarantee levels of PPE supplies. The contract also expands workplace violence prevention plans for all hospital units, as well as stating that quality care be provided to all patients regardless of their immigration status. Under the contract, nurses will also receive proper orientation when they’re floated to new hospital units, improving care for patients. And, rather than being sent home at management's whims, RNs will be able to remain at work to provide meal and break relief to other nurses, bolstering safe staffing. These measures will ensure nurses are prepared to provide patients with the highest and safest levels of care possible, resulting in improved nurse retention at Alhambra, which will benefit the entire community long term. Read full story Source: National Nurses United, 10 November 2022
  12. News Article
    Campaigners have welcomed the "life-saving" legislation to bring opt-out organ donation to Northern Ireland. The legislation, which will align Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK, passed its final stage in the assembly on Tuesday. It means people will automatically become donors unless they specifically state otherwise. Máirtín MacGabhann, whose son Dáithí is waiting on a heart transplant, said it was "phenomenal". The bill is to be known as 'Dáithí's Law' after the five-year-old whose family have campaigned for the law change. Mr MacGabhann said it was an emotional day for them. He told BBC NI's Evening Extra programme: "The most important thing, regardless of the name, is that it's passed its final stage and that life-saving legislation will go through." Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 February 2022
  13. News Article
    Several drug companies have been fined £35 million for colluding to raise the cost of an anti-nausea drug used by cancer patients, taking the total fines stemming from a Times investigation to £400 million. The price paid by the NHS for prochlorperazine 3mg dissolvable tablets rose by 700%, from £6.49 a packet to more than £51, between December 2013 and December 2017, costing the NHS an extra £5 million a year. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has ruled that several companies broke the law by fixing the market and agreeing not to produce a rival version of the drug, which is used to treat nausea and dizziness and can be prescribed to patients having chemotherapy. Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said: “The size of the fines reflects the seriousness of this breach. These firms conspired to stifle competition in the supply of this important medication, so that the NHS — the main buyer of the drugs — lost the opportunity for increased choice and lower prices.” He said the CMA would not “hesitate to take action like this against any businesses that collude at the expense of the NHS”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 3 February 2022
  14. News Article
    Those harmed by the NHS will “have to pay again by losing access to justice” as a result of government plans to introduce fixed costs, campaigners have claimed. The Department of Health & Social Care has published long-awaited proposals for fixed recoverable costs for fast-track cases, and significantly chose to set the fees at levels recommended by defendant representatives, rather than higher ones proposed by the claimant side. Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA), noted that the government consulted on similar proposals in 2017 and received a thumbs down from the majority of respondents. He said: “It is shocking that the government is still pushing to bring in these illogical and potentially unfair proposals rather than looking at the root causes of high costs and addressing them… “The government seems to have ignored the fact that the likely effect of these proposals would be that many people whose lives have been devastated by perfectly avoidable, negligent treatment will not be able to challenge denials or get access to justice. “In effect, the very people that the NHS has harmed through lapses in patient safety will have to pay again by losing access to justice. If lawyers are unable to claim for time they spend overcoming denials of liability, injured people will not be able to get legal representation.” Mr Walsh argued that the best way to save the NHS money was to improve patient safety to prevent these incidents in the first place, “and when mistakes do happen investigate them properly and make early, fair and appropriate offers of compensation without costly litigation”. Read full story Source: Legal Futures, 1 February 2022
  15. News Article
    Lawyers’ fees for clinical negligence claims against the NHS could be capped under proposals being considered by ministers. Launching a consultation, the government said “tackling increasing and disproportionate legal fees” for cases worth less than £25,000 would protect NHS funding. The Department of Health said claimants’ legal costs for “lower value claims” were “currently more than four times higher on average” than the NHS’s legal costs in defending the claims. It cited a case in which lawyers claimed £72,000 in legal costs when the patient was awarded £3,000. Patient Safety Minister Maria Caulfield said: “I’m committed to making the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world. When harm does occur, it’s essential the NHS learns from what went wrong, and people who have been negligently harmed are entitled to claim compensation. “Unfortunately, we are seeing some law firms profiting at the NHS’ expense through legal costs that far outweigh the actual compensation awarded to patients. This diverts resources from the NHS frontline as staff work hard to tackle the COVID-19 backlogs. “Our proposals will cap legal costs for lower value claims to ensure they are fair and proportionate, and ensure patients’ claims are resolved as swiftly as possible without reducing the compensation they deserve.” A spokesman for Thompson’s Solicitors, which acts for patients in such claims, told iNews: “Costs already have to be reasonable, proportionate and necessary in order to be recoverable. The answer is for the NHS to admit fault quicker and not cause cases to drag on for years." Read full story Source: iNews, 31 January 2022
  16. News Article
    The inquiry into sex offences carried out in a hospital mortuary will consider whether the trust board ‘received sufficient assurance’ about the issues raised by the assaults, documents shared with HSJ show. The draft terms of reference for the independent inquiry have been shared with the families of women and girls abused by maintenance supervisor David Fuller for comment. The inquiry will take place in two phases. The first phase – which will concentrate on Mr Fuller’s actions in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust – will look at his initial employment and access to the mortuary and other areas, and whether processes were appropriate. It will also in this phase “consider whether the trust’s board received sufficient assurance on the issues raised by the case”. But it will also seek to identify any evidence of “other inappropriate or unlawful activities” by Mr Fuller elsewhere on trust premises. It will review any evidence of concerns around his behaviour, and how the trust and the private contractors who later employed him addressed them. In a letter to the families, inquiry chair Sir Jonathan Michael says it is intended that the evidence sessions will be held in private “primarily to protect and safeguard the dignity and anonymity of those people that Fuller abused” but also to encourage people to be “candid”. It is unclear whether families or their legal representatives will be able to attend these private sessions – other than when they are giving evidence – and to raise questions. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 January 2022
  17. News Article
    NHS officials who accepted £70,000 in bribes to promote prescription drugs visited GP surgeries to “switch” patients’ medication, a court has heard. Paul Jerram and Dr David Turner have been accused of arriving at surgeries claiming to be on official business and changing a patient’s medication – a practice known as “switching”. James Hines QC prosecuting, told a trial at Southampton Crown Court that the two men had used their positions with the medicine management team of Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and that if the doctors at the surgeries had known it was “not an official visit, they would have not allowed them to [make the changes]”. “They were effectively using their position with the NHS to farm out the services of the medicine management team and they received money to do so,” the court was told. Mr Hines QC said: “The prosecution case is that it is completely improper for an NHS professional secretly to promote a particular drug within the NHS to his fellow NHS healthcare professionals when he is in effect in the position of a paid influencer for the pharma company that manufactures that drug. “That is what was happening on the Isle of Wight for some years. “If it is your job within the NHS to review medication and drugs, and make recommendations or suggestions for alternative medicines to fellow NHS healthcare professionals, you are acting improperly if you secretly accept money from pharma companies, either directly or indirectly, to promote a particular medicine. Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 27 January 2022
  18. News Article
    A string of failings may have contributed to the death of a “deeply vulnerable” law student who killed herself while being treated in a psychiatric hospital in Bristol, an inquest jury has said. Zoë Wilson, 22, had informed staff she was hearing voices in her head telling her to kill herself and 30 minutes before she died was seen by a nurse through an observation hatch looking frightened and behaving oddly but nobody went into her room to check her. Speaking after the jury’s conclusions, Wilson’s family said that Avon and Wiltshire mental health partnership NHS trust (AWP) should face criminal charges over the case. AWP said it accepted it had fallen short in its care of Wilson. Zoë on the 17 June 2019 she told staff she was hearing voices telling her to kill herself and handed over an item that she could have used to harm herself with. She was not moved to an acute ward and other items that she could have used were not removed. At 1am on 19 June she was observed standing beside her bathroom door looking frightened but staff did not go to her. Thirty minutes later she was checked again and had harmed herself. Emergency services were called but she was pronounced dead. Giving evidence to Avon coroner’s court, the nurse who saw Wilson at 1am said he had only worked in the unit a handful of times and had not met Wilson before that night. The jury concluded that steps taken to keep her safe that night had been inadequate and also criticised communication and information sharing. In a statement, her family, said: “Zoë was a wonderful, bright, and deeply vulnerable young woman. She was on a low-risk ward even when she told staff that voices in her head were telling her to kill herself.” They called for AWP to face a criminal prosecution by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). “We will continue to fight for justice in her name,” they said. “She will never be forgotten.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 January 2022
  19. News Article
    Injured NHS patients have spoken out about the human cost of clinical negligence in a new report published as MPs examine how to cut the health service’s bill for causing harm. The House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee is gathering evidence for its inquiry on NHS litigation reform. “There is a fixation on the financial cost of clinical negligence, rather than on the human cost and the reasons why injured patients have to make a claim for compensation at all,” said Guy Forster of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) a not-for-profit group which campaigns on behalf of injured patients and their families. “There are a lot of voices and opinions in any debate which concerns the NHS and patient safety, but they are almost never the voices and opinions of the patients. This is why APIL has commissioned The Value of Compensation report,” said Mr Forster. Patients who took part in the research cite mounting debt; uncertainty about their future health; isolation; abandoned careers; relationship breakdowns; and loss of independence, as some of the many far-reaching side effects of injuries sustained through failures in care. “Patients are devastated to have trusted the NHS with their health and then have to live with the pain and suffering of an injury which should have been avoided,” said Mr Forster. “This report provides new insight on how compensation can help rebuild their lives.” “None of them relish having to make a claim for compensation. I cannot stress enough that the money is never, ever a ‘windfall’ for an injured patient,” he went on. “It is obvious that full and fair compensation is critical for injured patients. It should go without saying that the cost of compensation would be cut if the harm were not caused in the first place. But it is critical that when things go wrong, injured people are cared for properly and have the chance to get back on track.” Read press release Source: APIL, 12 January 2022
  20. News Article
    The Irish Cabinet has approved general indemnity cover and product liability cover for claims to two public sector bodies relating to transvaginal mesh products and the Gardasil HPV vaccine. The Health Minister Stephen Donnelly brought forward a proposal to Cabinet Wednesday for the provision of this cover to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) and the Mental Health Commission (MHC) for claims relating to the mesh products or Gardasil. Gardasil is a type of vaccine used to protect against HPV. Vaginal mesh devices have been used in operations to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse; two conditions that can impact women after natural childbirth or in their later years. Including the bodies in the State’s general indemnity scheme for these claims will eliminate the requirement for them to carry private insurance. The State Claims Agency was consulted and indicated that it supports the inclusion of both bodies under the scheme. The clinical indemnity scheme indemnifies hospitals but is confined to clinical acts and/or omissions and doesn’t cover product liability matters. Current legal cases around transvaginal mesh products involve allegations in relation to the product itself and allegations of clinical negligence. It has now been proposed to delegate the product liability claims for mesh products to the State Claims Agency to ensure hospitals aren’t exposed to uninsured liability. Thousands of women across the world have suffered complications after having a vaginal mesh device implanted. These complications include chronic pain and recurrent urinary tract infections and have been life-changing in many cases. Read full story Source: thejournal.ie, 19 January 2022
  21. News Article
    NHS England has encouraged trusts to consider taking legal action against patients who refuse to leave hospital beds when step-down care is made available. NHSE guidance sent to trusts late last year, seen by HSJ, advised clinicians that where people “with mental capacity” refuse to vacate a bed because they do not accept NHS-funded short-term care offers, the “local discharge choice policy” should be followed, which could involve legal action. The guidance said the process “may include seeking an order for possession of the hospital bed” under civil law, and that “appropriate formal notification of the process must be given to the person and their representatives/carers”. These legal powers were open to trusts prior to covid, but the memo from NHSE comes amid increasing pressure on trusts to improve discharge rates, as waits for emergency and elective care continue to soar. Helen Hughes, chief executive of Patient Safety Learning, said: “Given the current pressures posed by covid, it is understandable that the NHS is seeking to ensure that the hospital discharge process is as swift and effective as possible. “However, hospital discharges are complex processes and can potentially result in avoidable harm if patients are discharged before they are clinically ready. It only takes one element of this complex process failing to put a patient’s safety at risk. “We would be particularly concerned if patients and their carers were put under pressure to accept potentially unsafe discharge options due to the threat of possible legal action by an NHS trust.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 January 2022
  22. News Article
    A Christian nurse who claimed she was discriminated against for wearing a cross at work has won her case for unfair dismissal. Mary Onuoha, a theatre practitioner at Croydon University Hospital in London, said she was bullied and harassed for refusing to remove her necklace in 2018. But an employment tribunal has ruled Croydon Health Services NHS Trust discriminated against and harassed Ms Onuoha over her refusal to remove the jewellery. The trust told her the necklace was a safety risk and must not be outwardly visible. Ms Onuoha, supported by Christian Legal Centre, said she had worked at the hospital for 13 years before being asked to remove the symbol. The tribunal found the employer’s uniform policy arbitrary, with many staff allowed to wear necklaces and other religious symbols were permitted. Following the ruling, Christian Legal Centre chief executive Andrea Williams said the trust’s interpretation of uniform guidance had led to a campaign of harassment against a devoted, experienced, and highly professional nurse, who was in effect hounded out of the NHS. Ms Onuoha said she was investigated and suspended from clinical duties when she refused to remove the item and she was demoted to receptionist duties. In June 2020, she went off work with stress and said she felt she had no alternative but to resign. Read full story Source: Nursing Standard, 6 January 2022
  23. News Article
    The government has rejected advice from an independent inquiry into the actions of disgraced surgeon Ian Paterson to suspend all healthcare professionals who are suspected of posing a risk to patient safety. The Department of Health and Social Care today published its response to 15 recommendations from the inquiry, which found Mr Paterson, jailed for 20 years in 2017 for 17 offences of wounding with intent, may have conducted up to 1,000 botched and unnecessary operations over a 14-year period. Of its 15 recommendations, the DHSC accepts nine in full, five in principle, rejects one entirely and there is another further point which it is keeping under review. In particular, the inquiry panel members recommended that when a hospital investigates a healthcare professional’s behaviour, including the use of an HR process, any perceived risk to patient safety should result in the suspension of that healthcare professional. DHSC chiefs said they agree practice exclusions and restriction can be necessary, and in some cases immediate exclusion is an appropriate response while an investigation is ongoing. But they added: “However, we do not believe it would be fair or proportionate to impose a blanket rule to exclude practitioners in such cases. “Such a step may inadvertently cause a chilling effect, dissuading healthcare professionals from raising concerns and negatively impacting patient safety.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 December 2021
  24. News Article
    A nurse who was sacked by a private hospital provider treating NHS patients which believed she had deliberately tried to sabotage its Care Quality Commission inspection has won a tribunal. An employment tribunal found Care UK’s dismissal of Lorna Jarrett carried “the taint of race discrimination” and said the company had provided no evidence of any malice on her part. Ms Jarret worked at the North East London Treatment Centre. The judgment said management at the facility were convinced Ms Jarrett had deliberately faxed confidential patient identifiable data to the inspectorate instead of the GP surgery they were supposed to be sent to. This incident occurred in the week of the centre’s CQC inspection. However, the tribunal ruled Care UK “did not explore any evidence that might support the claimant’s account and disbelieved her explanation”. It added: “Finding that she sent the fax deliberately and maliciously demands an explanation.” The tribunal judgment said it was Ms Jarrett’s case that “subconscious bias was in play” and found Care UK had not explained the “lack of any motive”. Employment judge Lewis said: “Whilst we accept that Mr O’Brien did not consciously discriminate against the claimant because of her race we find that the factors relied on, her demeanour, attitude, her supposed lack of remorse, are matters that demonstrate subconscious bias and are not free from the taint of race discrimination. We find that the respondent has failed to discharge the burden on it to explain the difference in treatment.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 December 2021
  25. News Article
    A trust will not face a second prosecution over the death of a baby seven days after a chaotic birth at one of its hospitals, unless new evidence emerges. Kent police had been looking into incidents at the maternity services department of East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust. These incidents include the death of Harry Richford, who was born at Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Hospital in November 2017. A coroner found a string of failures in his care amounted to neglect. The trust pleaded guilty to failing to meet fundamental standards of care and was fined £733,000 in a case brought by the Care Quality Commission earlier this year. But detective chief superintendent Paul Fotheringham, head of major crime at Kent Police, said: “After careful consideration and following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, we took the decision that a criminal investigation would not be undertaken at this time as there is no realistic prospect of conviction against any individual or organisation based on the evidence currently available." In a statement, Harry’s family said: “We are disappointed that Kent Police, in collaboration with the CPS special crime unit in London, have not been able to take forward a charge of corporate manslaughter for Harry at this time. They have assured us that they will keep an open mind on this matter, and any other appropriate charges as and when new evidence is brought before them. “We believe that the Kirkup inquiry and investigation may allow them to revisit a raft of charges on behalf of harmed babies in east Kent in due course. Only when senior leaders are properly held to account, will there be lasting change.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 December 2021
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