Negligence – for patients and practitioners

The definition of negligence is as follows:

1. The practitioner must have a duty of care to the patient involved.
2. The Practitioner must neglect their duty of care to the patient involved
3. The above neglect of duty must cause harm to the patient involved

Negligence is a triangle and all three corners of the triangle must meet in order for negligence and the allegation of negligence to stick.

Something going wrong does not mean that negligence has occurred, things go wrong all the time in life and in healthcare too.

Just because you’ve paid for something doesn’t mean that it should not go wrong and just because it goes wrong does not mean that someone has deliberately neglected your care.

Number 2 in the list above is the most damning, most hurtful and most destructive part of the negligence triangle.

Anybody who talks to a patient will understand they have accepted a duty of care and anyone’s patients who suffer harm (almost anyone anyway) is devastated by the harm that is suffered when things don’t go well.

If there is only a tiny proportion of people who deliberately neglect to that duty which then leads to harm then it is really important that the general public understand this before they run to ambulance chases and regulators every five farts.

Blog post number: 1419