Medical Negligence Claims Against The NHS

2090 Words5 Pages

I will be talking about medical negligence, claims towards the NHS. I will go into detail about the problems with negligence. I will also be talking about a variety of policy considerations, like floodgates, I will talk about the effect of people claiming and the cost of fighting negligence claims against the NHS. I will also talk about the effect of policy considerations.

Negligence is carelessness amounting to the culpable breach of duty. Failure to do or recognize, something that a reasonable person would. The reasonable man test is to see if a reasonable person would have done the same things, as the defendant. But in cases with professional people like doctors we then, hold them to as standard of a reasonable doctor who is competent …show more content…

This is a phrase used to argue that if a Court were to recognize a cause of action, it may lead to a dramatic increase in litigation or a ‘flood’ of similar claims and, therefore, exposing a Defendant to potentially indeterminate liability. This is why it is so difficult for claims to go through, as this will increase the number of claims made against the NHS. The numbers off claims have already been increasing yearly. Claims against the NHS have risen to 22 per cent in just one year, and almost doubled in five years. This is what it means my floodgates; the courts opened the doors for claims against the NHS now they are increasing very quickly. The courts may not even be able to deal with all of the claims coming in, as every case requires time to look through and asses, which may even mean new the courts have to employee more workers to deal with the ‘flood’ of claims. Which will be at an extra …show more content…

As it is not just about the people involved in the case, the verdict could effect the society. This why some policy considerations are put into place so it could help judges come to a verdict. For example, loss allocation, the NHS has paid out million of pounds for medical negligence claims against the NHS a spoke about above, the money that has gone there could have been used, to improve the NHS. Which would have had a better effect on society. Cases against the NHS and other public bodies are not just between the two parties, but the factors, which are getting effected from the outside. Another example I spoke about was floodgates, if the courts open up the ‘floodgates’ for all of the claims against the NHS then everyone will try and claim something, there is already an increase in the claims due to the ‘no win no fee’ lawyers. But people who claim against the NHS are all not looking for monetary compensation ‘any victims of iatrogenic injury desire explanation, apology, and evidence of learning from any mistakes as major outcomes and they are not content with mere financial compensation.’ . So the floodgates need to filter out what cases are actually medical negligence were claimants can actually claim for something. As many people try to claim just because its free, and they can make money out of it. The NHS needs to cap the amount of money being paid out for compensation, as

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