Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582 – Law Journals

Pure diagnosis cases: The test of breach of duty

Paul Sankey provides guidance on the appropriate test for breach of duty after negligence in diagnosis ‘The judge reached the right answer to the straightforward question “did the professional exercise reasonable care and skill?”, but had to use a route through Bolam and Bolitho to get there.’ The test of what amounts to breach of …

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Case conduct: Alternative solutions

Matthew Stockwell explores collaborative working in larger clinical negligence cases ‘Within the Guide, the importance of communication and the availability of an escalation mechanism are emphasised. If these tools are not fully effective, an infinite number of alternatives – formal or informal – exist.’ There are many shared frustrations for clinical negligence practitioners. There is …

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Advocate’s advice: Clinical negligence update

Bill Braithwaite QC provides his insight on recent significant case law ‘In Montgomery, the Supreme Court highlighted the importance of patient autonomy and the patient’s entitlement to make decisions whether to incur risks of injury inherent in treatment.’ Updating in clinical negligence is not always easy, because the principles usually stay the same, and only …

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Musings from Manchester: System error

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Geoffrey Shindler argues that HMRC should be as honest about errors as the rest of society is encouraged to be ‘I hope that when we make mistakes, as we do, we rectify them at our own expense, or the expense of our insurers, without having to incur our clients in any form of proceedings all …

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Will drafting: Tech support

Josh Lewison asks whether AI could be used effectively to write wills ‘In my view, the introduction of AI to the will-drafting landscape is unlikely to give rise to any greatly complex new problems in liability or redress.’ According to a recent survey, a large proportion of members of the public would not want to …

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Case report: Duce v Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust [2018] EWCA Civ 1307

Limits of the duty of informed consent; breach of duty; causation ‘The confirmation of the need to satisfy the but for test is consistent with a long line of recent authority.’ In Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] it was held that the doctor must take reasonable care to ensure that a patient is aware …

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Childbirth Injury: Liability issues

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Rushmi Sethi examines clinical negligence claims concerning childbirth injury ‘The doctor’s obligation, other than in cases where it would damage the patient’s welfare, was to present the material risks and uncertainties of different treatments, and to allow patients to make decisions that would affect their health and well-being on proper information.’ Relatively few childbirth injury …

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Advocate’s Advice: Clinical negligence review

Bill Braithwaite QC analyses the most important cases of the year ‘A report setting out a diagnosis without any recommendation for treatment or any further diagnostic procedure is far from what McNair J had in mind when he directed the jury in Bolam.’ Although I only do clinical negligence claims involving the brain or spine, I …

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Consent To Medical Treatment: Changing priorities

Paul Sankey investigates a decision in the Court of Appeal after it had applied the Montgomery test ‘There have been a number of reported decisions from the lower courts since Montgomery but this is the first Court of Appeal decision to apply the new definition of a doctor’s duty in giving advice.’The recent decision in …

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Eye Injuries: Getting the correct treatment

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Rushmi Sethi examines clinical negligence claims concerning ophthalmic injuries ‘A doctor is not negligent if there is another responsible body of medical opinion who would have acted in the same way as the treating clinician.’The purpose of this article is to consider the recent case law relating to eye injury claims, considering in particular the …

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