{"id":49477,"date":"2021-01-28T22:46:37","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T21:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=49477"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T14:08:31","slug":"christine-tomkins-covid-complaints-and-claims-hard-to-bear-for-frontline-healthcare-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/01\/28\/christine-tomkins-covid-complaints-and-claims-hard-to-bear-for-frontline-healthcare-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Christine Tomkins: Covid complaints and claims hard to bear for frontline healthcare workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/publications\/4339\/documents\/44418\/default\/\">report out last week<\/a> by the House of Commons Public Accounts committee largely went unnoticed, but should concern all of us and not just colleagues doing their upmost to care for patients in the current health crisis. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/publications\/4339\/documents\/44418\/default\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">report <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">provides a further stark warning on the unsustainable cost of clinical negligence and its impact on public finances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Principal amongst them, is the provision of tax payer money for the \u00a385 billion liabilities associated with clinical negligence which the report notes \u201crepresents significant risks to the UK finances.\u201d The Treasury notes this amount is worth <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/937804\/The_Balance_Sheet_Review_report____.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a33,600 for every household in England, compared to \u00a3700 per household 10 years ago<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The report goes on to say that \u201cthe government will be further exposed to liabilities arising from its response to covid-19 that will require strategic management.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the MDU, we help thousands of members each year with complaints and claims around their clinical care of patients. While many people have been understanding about the constraints and compromises forced on practitioners by the health crisis, others have continued to make complaints. MDU members have been in touch with us with over 3,000 complaints and adverse incidents from the start of the first lockdown in March 2020 to the end of last year. Such cases relate both to covid-19 treatment itself and the wider impact of the pandemic on the provision or availability of other care and treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two issues that feature prominently in our complaint files are<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">alleged delays in diagnosing serious conditions such as cancers and stroke during remote consultations and delays in referrals for further investigations due to the backlog of non-covid related treatment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of these cases have the potential to become claims against the NHS in the years ahead. It\u2019s worth remembering that claims are usually made three to five years after an incident and sometimes even decades later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Supreme Court<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> confirmed in 2018 that the standard of care is judged against the role undertaken and some legal commentators<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have already suggested it is unlikely &#8220;the Courts will relax these long established and rigid principles.&#8221; Whether that will indeed be the case remains to be seen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It would be a mistake to assume that just because they are state indemnified and not financially responsible for claims relating to covid-19 treatment, that doctors are not concerned about the prospect of a claim. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themdu.com\/press-centre\/press-releases\/majority-of-gps-plan-to-continue-with-remote-consultations-and-triage-post-covid-19-mdu-survey\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a survey of our GP members<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 63% said they were concerned about facing a complaint or claim related to the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Doctors would still have to give evidence and face the distress and anxiety of having their clinical work criticised and decisions questioned when the public memory of the extraordinary circumstances they have been working under has faded.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The emotional turmoil of being subjected to lengthy clinical negligence proceedings long after the event can be a deeply traumatic experience. It is not uncommon for NHS staff subject to a claim to suffer from mental health problems as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The government must act now to ensure the NHS, and all NHS healthcare professionals currently making enormous personal and professional sacrifices, are <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/370\/bmj.m2487\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">exempt from covid-19 related clinical negligence claims<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. As a matter of urgency, the government also needs to reform the law on clinical negligence to tackle the immense financial cost of compensation payments. This will ensure NHS finances are directed at patient care rather than the current system which results in millions of pounds leaving the NHS.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Christine Tomkins<\/strong>, chief executive of the Medical Defence Union.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Competing interests<\/strong>: none declared.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report out last week by the House of Commons Public Accounts committee largely went unnoticed, but should concern all of us and not just colleagues doing their upmost to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/01\/28\/christine-tomkins-covid-complaints-and-claims-hard-to-bear-for-frontline-healthcare-workers\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":38875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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