The victim's fault

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The Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) report sets a provision against the cost of all existing possible medical negligence claims at £15.7 billion.

Obstetric and midwifery errors causing brain damage in babies accounts for the majority of the financial provision.  With each damaged baby resulting in a life time of heartache for the family and extensive care and equipment needs it is not surprising that the cost of many individual medical negligence claims exceeds £5,000,000 for the NHS.  

The media and many in government argue that the rising costs of medical negligence are driven by solicitors and the fact that injured patients can, under the present system, obtain access to justice without considerable personal financial exposure.  Their solution is simply to penalise injured patients by ensuring that they can not recover the full compensation they desperately need and discouraging solicitors from bringing difficult but very important cases by ensuring financial ruin of the law firm if cases are lost.

Surely the long term solution is to improve the system of management of labour and delivery to reduce the negligent errors which cause so much heartache and pain, and yes expense to the government.  

The NICE guidelines allowing pregnant women to elect for delivery by caesarean section are a step forward.  With nearly all brain damaged babies who are able to succeed in litigation claims having their damage caused in the last hours and minutes of labour an increase in the number of caesarean sections can only reduce the number of brain damaged babies.  

No reasonable person will blame the victim of medical negligence for the fact they then seek compensation designed to minimise in as far as possible the consequences of their unnecessary injury caused by the negligence of a doctor, nurse or other health professional.  Equally there is no reasonable argument to require those who have been injured to pay from their compensation, or otherwise, for the costs of obtaining justice.  

The Department of Health accept this argument saying "If patients do not receive the treatment they should, and mistakes are made, it is right that they are entitled to compensation and the NHS Litigation Authority plays a vital role in ensuring claims are settled as swiftly as possible."  

However the Department of Health and Government are doing everything they can to place obstacles in the way of injured patients and their legal advisers obtaining proper compensation through the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill currently before Parliament.