CIVIL PROCEDURE PRE-ACTION PROTOCOLS
CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE PROTOCOL
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. The Clinical Disputes Forum is a multi-disciplinary body which was formed in 1997, as a result of Lord Woolf’s ‘Access to Justice’ inquiry. One of the aims of the Forum is to find less adversarial and more cost-effective ways of resolving disputes about healthcare and medical treatment. The names and addresses of the Chairman and Secretary of the Forum can be found at Annex E. 2. This protocol is the Forum’s first major initiative. It has been drawn up care-fully, including extensive consultations with most of the key stakeholders in the medico-legal system. 3. The protocol –
- encourages a climate of openness when something has ‘gone wrong’ with a patient’s treatment or the patient is dissatisfied with that treat-ment and/or the outcome. This reflects the new and developing requirements for clinical governance within healthcare;
- provides general guidance on how this more open culture might be achieved when disputes arise;
- recommends a timed sequence of steps for patients and healthcare providers, and their advisers, to follow when a dispute arises. This should facilitate and speed up exchanging relevant information and increase the prospects that disputes can be resolved without resort to legal action.
4. This protocol has been prepared by a working party of the Clinical Disputes Forum. It has the support of the Lord Chancellor’s Department, the Depart-ment of Health and NHS Executive, the Law Society, the Legal Aid Board and many other key organisations.
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