By Alex Stein STEIN on Medical Malpractice has published a survey of noteworthy court decisions in the field for 2017. This survey includes an important decision, North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan, 219 So.3d 49 (Fla. 2017), that voided Florida’s cap on medical malpractice victims’ noneconomic damages, Fla. Stat. Ann. §§ 766.118(2), 766.118(3). Section 766.118(2) provides that in…
By Alex Stein STEIN on Medical Malpractice has published a survey of noteworthy court decisions in the field for 2017. This survey includes an important decision, King v. Bryant, 795 S.E.2d 340 (N.C. 2017), that examines the validity of a doctor-patient agreement to arbitrate disputes over medical malpractice. A front desk employee at a surgeon’s practice provided…
By John Tingle The Guardian newspaper recently published it’s investigation into Coroners Prevention of Future Deaths Notices (PFDN’s) issued between 2012-2017 involving people receiving NHS care for mental health conditions. The findings from its investigation are shocking; many cases deaths could have been prevented had better care been given. Some errors identified are classic patient safety…
By Alex Stein STEIN on Medical Malpractice has published a survey of noteworthy court decisions in the field for 2017. This survey includes an important decision, Doherty v. Merck & Co., Inc., 154 A.3d 1202 (Me. 2017), featuring reproductive negligence. This decision could benefit from Dov Fox’s excellent article, Reproductive Negligence, 117 Colum. L. Rev. 149…
By John Tingle The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England and they have recently produced their annual report to Parliament on how health services are applying the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA) .This report, shines a very strong light on failing health care practices in mental health…
By John Tingle A common theme found in patient safety reports in England going back as far as the year 2000 is that the NHS (National Health Service) is poor at learning lessons from previous adverse health incident reports and of changing practice. The seminal report on patient safety in England, Organisation with a memory…
By John Tingle UK national and social media have been buzzing all last week about a letter sent on Monday 29th January 2018 by the NHS Confederation to the Justice Secretary and copying in the Secretary of State for Health.BBC news set the scene under the banner headline, ‘Curb rising NHS negligence pay-outs, health leaders…
By John Tingle In tort law we have a very well-known Latin phrase, ‘Res Ipsa Loquitur’ (the thing speaks for itself). An inference of negligence can be raised by the events that occurred. In the National Health Service (NHS) in England there is a similar concept,‘the Never Event’. The Never Event concept is a USA…
By John Tingle The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (Committee of Public Accounts) has recently considered the issue of managing the increasing clinical negligence costs in NHS (National Health Service) hospitals in a report. They make a number of important recommendations as well as putting into the spotlight a number of developing trends…
By John Tingle The Department of Health and the government in England have published a draft Bill for discussion which will create a Health Service Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) with powers enshrined in law. The HSSIB replaces the current Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) which operates under the umbrella of NHS Improvement and came into…
