Sunday, December 17, 2006

Chapter 28 - The Future of the NHS


This is a summary of chapter 28 - Medical Negligence Claims. It was written by Dr Gerard Panting, Director of Policy, Medical Protection Society.

In this chapter he provides a guide to the NHS Redress Bill which is aimed at improving procedures for dealing with clinical negligence claims, both in terms of helping victims and in reducing costs. Ultimately, he believes the success of the Redress Scheme will depend on how individual trusts manage the process at local level, and whether there is counter shift away from attributing blame, towards preventing harm reducing risks and learning from mistakes.

The scheme is to be overseen by the National Health Service Litigation Authority (NHSLA) and he raises questions as to its impartiality, and also whether it will have the resources properly to investigate what the acceptable range of practice was and whether the work came within it.

Ultimately his belief is that the scheme is likely to result in more patients with low value claims coming forward to use the scheme.

To comment further on the legal issues involved with the NHS please post here or on www.thefutureofthenhs.com

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