After conducting a serious incident investigation into a patient’s treatment, West Suffolk allegedly threatened senior medics with possible disciplinary action if they failed to give their fingerprints and samples of their handwriting to find the whistleblower. DAUK Chair Dr Rinesh Parmar responds to this news in The Guardian.
Alongside Sir Robert Francis QC, Bill Kirkup, and Dr Leslie Hamilton who lead the GMC commissioned review into gross negligence manslaughter, our Chair was invited to speak about the blame…
If we truly believe in a just culture and the benefits this can bring for patient safety, it has to give equal importance to being fair to patients and families as staff. Cicely Cunningham, DAUK’s Learn Not Blame lead, explores what a just culture really means, with James Titcombe and Peter Walsh.
Our Chair Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden shares her view in the BMJ after interviewing Charlie Massey (chief executive GMC) for a documentary Sammy presented on BBC Radio 4. In this interview Charlie Massy admits for the first time that his decision to take Dr Bawa-Garba to the Hight Court to have her struck off was incorrect.
Dr Jenny Vaughan, DAUK’s Law and Policy officer writes for the BMJ about the case which has rocked medicine more than any other in recent times. Read her analysis as…
We are grateful to BMJ for publishing this paper, written by our Law and Policy Officer Dr Jenny Vaughan in conjunction with Dr Ameratunga, Dr Klonin Dr Merry and Dr Cusack, and giving it front page profile. We hope it will be a game-changer for the UK and that no other clinicians, be they doctors, nurses or optometrists will find themselves in front of a criminal court unless they have recklessly and wilfully caused death.
Dr Jenny Vaughan, our Law and Policy Officer gave a talk at ICS SOA 2018 entitled ‘Criminalisation of Healthcare. Does it improve patient safety?’. Jenny discussed the history of gross negligence manslaughter in the UK, case law, and revisited the case of Dr Bawa-Garba. You can now listen to Jenny’s full speech as a podcast on the ICS site, including advice on how doctors can avoid litigation.
