The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7256 p8
5 July 2003

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"Making Amends" consultation document (more)

New system for negligence claims

A consultation document proposing reforms to the way in which medical negligence claims are handled by the National Health Service in England was published by the Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson this week.

Entitled "Making amends", the report sets out 19 reforms intended to reduce the costs and the time taken for claims to be settled. This includes a redress scheme for those harmed by seriously substandard hospital care to be managed by a new national body. The scheme will investigate an incident, provide an explanation to the patient, deliver a package of remedial and continuing care and provide payments for pain and suffering and other expenses. Up to £30,000 could be paid out to a claimant and people accepting payment would waive their right to take the same claim to court.

It is hoped that the scheme will also reduce tension between clinicians and claimants and increase willingness to report errors and adverse events in the health service. Initially, the redress scheme will be applied to hospitals, but may extend to primary care, depending on its success.

The report points out that in NHS hospitals over a fifth of claims for negligence involve death and unnecessary pain. In primary care, almost 25 per cent of claims are for medication error.

The document is available here.