Criminal Law regards Gross Negligence

Criminal Law regards Gross Negligence

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singlecoil

33,311 posts

245 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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Dixy said:
Firstly apologies to the OP for hijacking your thread, I hope you find some peace.
No, under my formula there is no place for civil law at all, the NHS is based on what should be a cornerstone of humanity and the solution to things going wrong should be the same.
I have yet to meet some one that has not screwed up, the consequences in health are most apparent. Loosing a young life will not be resolved by a fat cheque. Mistakes must be acknowledged and lessons learnt, but the constant threat of litigation forces the NHS to be uncommunicative, defensive and far too much time is spent literally ticking boxes that could be far better used for patient care.
Good point well made.

allergictocheese

1,290 posts

112 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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If a victim of NHS negligence subsequently requires round-the-clock care costing thousands of pounds a month for the rest of their life, who should pay for that?

singlecoil

33,311 posts

245 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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If a medical negligence lawyer requires the latest model of Mercedes S Class, who should pay for that?

allergictocheese

1,290 posts

112 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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singlecoil said:
If a medical negligence lawyer requires the latest model of Mercedes S Class, who should pay for that?
Ooh, I get to use one of those childish internezt sayings. Straw Man! Yo!

If the NHS cock up, leading to someone needing care for life, perhaps they could admit the fact and reach agreement before it leads to an expensive legal case and then no lawyers get an S Class?

singlecoil

33,311 posts

245 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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allergictocheese said:
If the NHS cock up, leading to someone needing care for life, perhaps they could admit the fact and reach agreement before it leads to an expensive legal case and then no lawyers get an S Class?
Excellent plan, and one I approve of. It may even be that in many cases the NHS could actually provide the 24hr care itself.

Although I expect one problem might be that there will be situations where the doctors believe they didn't cock up, but that the patient or his/her relatives do, and then it will need a bunch of people, none of which are doctors, to argue the toss about it and all get S Classes.

Dixy

2,913 posts

204 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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allergictocheese said:
If a victim of NHS negligence subsequently requires round-the-clock care costing thousands of pounds a month for the rest of their life, who should pay for that?
That is the point we live in a country where it does not matter whether, it was a Doctor who has worked 91 hours over the last 7 nights and missed the difficult to spot C5 fracture in a poor X-ray and is under pressure not to send people to a CT scan because they are expensive and lawyers need a C-class, or the drunk chav smashed up his spine having twocked. They get FREE round-the-clock care costing thousands of pounds a month for the rest of their life.
Because we live in the most caring country in the world.

allergictocheese

1,290 posts

112 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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And the victim of the negligence, who can no longer work at all because of catastrophic injuries suffered as a result, losing their ability to continue to earn £50k a year until their retirement. What of them? Do they have to suck up that £1m loss because its just tough luck the negligent person was an NHS employee and not a work colleague or motorist etc.?

Dixy

2,913 posts

204 months

Monday 29th December 2014
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No one is left destitute in this country. We only use the NHS when you already have a problem. The humans that work and occasionally mess up are not the ones who pay up, it comes out of the NHS budget which impedes there ability to provide a less imperfect service.
The system we have is far from perfect but it is better than any other in the world, my contention is your solution makes it overall worse and mine would make it overall better.

nekrum

Original Poster:

571 posts

276 months

Wednesday 31st December 2014
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Hi All

Again thanks for the replies and direct messages. I have now got the information I needed. It looks like my post has inadvertently created an interesting debate, I'll put my view and a few more details or our situation for clarification.

Firstly, my enquiry regards criminal law, specifically around gross negligence manslaughter was triggered by the coroner who brought this up at the inquest. The inquest was mid december but the coroner is not giving his verdict until January after he has considered the evidence. At lot of things came to light in live evidence that hadn't within previous investigation / statements. As a family we have been placed in a very alien situation and will no previous experience or knowledge of inquests I have been on a very steep learning curve - I have an obligation to ensure my sons death is thoroughly investigated and appropriate steps taken (whatever they may be). I can't do that without a basic understanding. Not just so we can find peace but also to ensure lives are not endangered in the future. We had twins, and I owe it him to ensure all the facts are known as one day he will ask me what happened to his brother and I want to be able to look him in the eye and tell him the truth whatever that may have been. In our case there have been many systematic failures both before and after their delivery not just the dangerous, unorthodox and inappropriate actions (their words) taken by the registrar during delivery which resulted in the killing of our son. Negligence is a generic term probably used to often, in our case there has been a serious breech of acceptable practice and duty of care by multiple people and the Trust, so serious it has been described to me by an independent consultant as grossly negligent.

In relation to the debate on litigation in our situation without legal representation, I very much doubt we would have ever got the truth. The Trust failed on multiple occasions to investigate a serious death (failing to follow government protocols) and only did so by order of the coroner some 14 months later. It has since come to light that important information had been deliberetly omitted from documents and reports. If we took what the Trust said at face value we would never have known the truth. We have not gone looking for blame or fault but just the Truth. If fault is found (seriously grossly negligent) then people need to stand up and be held accountable for their actions. Without litigation in our case we would not be able to put appropriate pressure on the Trust to ensure they act swiftly and put measures in place to ensure lives are not a risk!.. It is our understanding that in the last couple of months the Trust have started to make improvements but they do not go far enough at present and remember we are now just over 15 months down the line. If the Trust investigated from the start and were truthful and open then litigation and associated costs would not have been needed. There is only one winner - the legal firms.

The NHS is undoubtably budgeting a lot of money for litigation which yes can and should be used for front line services and improving care. However this augment could just as easily be applied to costs the NHS endures for looking after immigrants who do not contribute to the system, lazy obese people, needless cosmetic surgery (boob jobs etc) and massive bonuses to middle and senior management.. The NHS is in trouble there is no doubt but litigation is not the root cause and unfortunatly without it the NHS will not improve and weed out the bad managers and practitioners.

We did not go on a witch hunt looking for somebody to blame, but just wanted the truth. The truth as it turns out was far worse then we could have imagined and is a massive blow, something that will be hard to come to terms with. Our son was killed as a result of preventable events. However, if his loss forces the Trust to make changes that saves lives in the future then at least his short life wasn't wasted!..

Edited by nekrum on Wednesday 31st December 10:40

Piglet

6,250 posts

254 months

Wednesday 31st December 2014
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I suspect anyone who thinks that we have a complete safety net in terms of free social and medical care in this country has never had the need to look for it. My 78 year aunt has cared for her severely physically (not mentally) disabled husband at home for nearly 40 years. For the last few years she has had to pay for respite cover to enable her to go out even for the day as we have insufficient community nurses to do what she does everyday (they insist on 2 nurses at a time and never have 2 do duty). I agree Tonker's points.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 12th April 2015
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The criminal threshold is high. There are circumstances in which clinical negligence reaches it, but it's very rare. My instinctive reaction, from those awful circumstances, is that it wouldn't be. However as others have said it's important to take bespoke, expert advice from someone qualified who has access to all the facts.

Are you able to speak to the police officers who work for the coroner to see if they have any specific methods to asses any potential criminal acts after an inquest?

Dixy said:
The loss of a child must be the worst thing to experience and I wont never mind cant imagine it.
the NHS sets aside £800 for every birth to cover claims.
Yes everything that goes wrong should be understood and the lesson learnt.
A large percentage of doctors leave the country after f2 as they wont except the beurocracy that says filling in forms to prove a defence and being nice to relatives is better than treating patients.
A doctor can and are contracted to work more hours in seven consecutive nights than a truck driver can work in a fortnight. Except Shipman who made it even madder none of the profession set out to harm.
The bill for litigation is crippling the NHS.
But I am being ridiculous.
The quality of claims are important. There's a difference between an irrational desire to "blame someone" as a channel for the pain of losing a loved one, vs genuine negligence in which litigation will help sharpen the focus of the NHS to prevent like occurrences occurring again.






GoneAnon

1,703 posts

151 months

Sunday 12th April 2015
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First, to the OP I extend my sincere condolences on your loss - I can't begin to imagine the pain of such a thing.



Most of us are in the happy situation that, if we make a mistake at work there is no harm done, or any damage we cause can be repaired - albeit at a financial/time cost. When things go wrong medically, those professionals have to deal personally with feelings of guilt, self-doubt, etc as well as accusations of neglect, abuse, not trying hard enough etc.

Very few medicos do Bad Things because they can or want to, but sometimes stuff happens and compensation or blame isn't going to bring anyone back. If there are lessons to be learned (god, I HATE that phrase) or wrongdoers to be punished we should, as a society, do so but looking for someone to blame is not helpful.

My father was a GP and he died almost 40 years ago. Even then, he could see the way society was going and prophesised that the day would come where the call "Is there a doctor aboard?" would be ignored because if a medical professional tried to assist but failed, they would be held accountable for the failure rather than credited for at least trying to help.

For myself and my family, if we need medical attention I'd rather they tried than hid for fear of litigation.


singlecoil

33,311 posts

245 months

Sunday 12th April 2015
quotequote all
GoneAnon said:
First, to the OP I extend my sincere condolences on your loss - I can't begin to imagine the pain of such a thing.



Most of us are in the happy situation that, if we make a mistake at work there is no harm done, or any damage we cause can be repaired - albeit at a financial/time cost. When things go wrong medically, those professionals have to deal personally with feelings of guilt, self-doubt, etc as well as accusations of neglect, abuse, not trying hard enough etc.

Very few medicos do Bad Things because they can or want to, but sometimes stuff happens and compensation or blame isn't going to bring anyone back. If there are lessons to be learned (god, I HATE that phrase) or wrongdoers to be punished we should, as a society, do so but looking for someone to blame is not helpful.

My father was a GP and he died almost 40 years ago. Even then, he could see the way society was going and prophesised that the day would come where the call "Is there a doctor aboard?" would be ignored because if a medical professional tried to assist but failed, they would be held accountable for the failure rather than credited for at least trying to help.

For myself and my family, if we need medical attention I'd rather they tried than hid for fear of litigation.
yes

Good point well made.

nekrum

Original Poster:

571 posts

276 months

Sunday 12th April 2015
quotequote all
Hi

Thanks for the replies and I agree.. throughout we have not gone looking for blame, all we have wanted is the truth. The truth is shocking. I agree that any medical practitioner should always have a go if a life is at risk, it is most defiantly better to try and fail then not to try at all and they should be applauded for doing so. I have no doubt that the registrar had not intention of causing the death of our son but, she made no attempt to follow accepted practice, accepted procedures and failed to step back and take stock. He was not at serious risk until she attempted the unorthodox and unacceptable procedures. There was no justification for her actions and she did not offer any at the inquest.

The Trust failed to be honest, they failed to learn and they have failed to act - we have no alternative but to take it out of there hands. For those that don't know the coroners report is called a 'Prevention of Future Deaths' report, his concerns are sufficient to think lives are still at risk.

I would also say that the actions we are taking will not give us any comfort, they will not bring him back and will not give us any pleasure.. Ultimately it is not my decision if a criminal act has been committed that's for the CPS and whatever they decide we accept. We can only act on the information we have. People must he held accountable for their actions.

I personally wouldn't be able to live with myself if these people are involved in future incidences, responsible for a death / cover up and I failed to act.

Edited by nekrum on Sunday 12th April 15:33


Edited by nekrum on Sunday 12th April 15:37

paulmakin

653 posts

140 months

Sunday 12th April 2015
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i think, but IANAL, that the legal test of professional negligence is still Bolam vs Friern Hospital. Summarisng enormously, it holds that if a professional (that is, someone purporting to have more than average skill, knowledge or training) reaches a standard which would be acceptable to a representative sample of his peers, he will not be negligent.

there is a four stage test involving duty of care (established), breach of that duty (to be decided by establishing the medical consensus), a causal link between the breach and harm (to be established, if/when a breach is confirmed)and that the harm not be remote (a given in these dreadful circumstances).

with this in mind, i would first seek to establish whether or not the coroner had considered Bolam before using the word "unorthodox".

purely for info/discussion and not attempting to comment on any subsequent acts or omissions by the Trust or it's officers

regards and my condolences
paul

nekrum

Original Poster:

571 posts

276 months

Monday 13th April 2015
quotequote all
Thanks Paul

The word "unorthodox" came from an independent expert's report.. he was asked and confirmed.. Trust's own SUI report (when they finally investigated) also confirmed by consensus of peers.

Dixy

2,913 posts

204 months

Monday 13th April 2015
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I think that the trusts behaviour has been totally unacceptable, it is a clumsy attempt at dealing with a disaster. Open, honest learning from mistakes and dealing with lawyers are mutually exclusive in the real world.
I wonder how few routine procedures carried out now were not described as unorthodox the first few times they saved someone's life.

Zod

35,295 posts

257 months

Monday 13th April 2015
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
I got one of those calls recently and asked what the caller thought my firm's business was. She had the gall (or perhaps lack of gorm) to keep at it even when I explained it to her.

Dixy

2,913 posts

204 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
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This is why the NHS cant afford to give the care we want. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-32...
We cant have it both ways, care free at the point of need or a compensation because things went wrong culture.

Dixy

2,913 posts

204 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
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Both of those children would have been totally cared for by the welfare state. We can not undo what has happened, yes lessons must be learnt but that wont happen when lawyers are telling both sides what must not be said.
The NHS was set up so that everyone could have a midwife and if needed doctors during childbirth, before that the mother and child mortality rate depended on wealth which is wrong, but in return for them doing their best for free, we should surrender our rite to compensation if they prove merely human. The alternative is it collapses and we go back to individual wealth.
OP if you are still following this I hope I have chosen my words well enough not to cause you any more stress, if not I apologise.