Lawford Kidd's Blog

The UK Parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has published a report calling for a new national independent patient safety investigation body to be established in England.

According to the Secretary of State for Health, there are an estimated 12,000 avoidable hospital deaths every year, and more than 10,000 serious incidents are reported to NHS England annually. There were 338 recorded "never events" (such as wrong site surgery) in 2013-14 and NHS England received 174,872 written complaints. The NHS Litigation Authority’s latest estimate of clinical negligence liabilities is apparently £26.1 billion.

The huge numbers involved in the overall work of the NHS—15.8 million admissions to hospitals and 19.2 million A&E attendances in England the year to November 2014—put those figures in context, but PASC says that the overwhelming response received to its inquiry is an indication of the devastating impact of clinical failures when things do go wrong.

One of the UK’s main health and safety bodies has reiterated its opposition to Government plans to deregulate areas of health and safety.

The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is opposed to a clause in the Government’s Deregulation Bill that exempts certain self-employed workers from health and safety law.

The clause suggests that workers will be exempt from health and safety law if they are self-employed, do not employ anyone else, that their activities pose no potential risk of harm to others, and that they do not work in a high hazard or high risk sector (to be designated ‘prescribed’) such as agriculture, construction or gas fitting and installation.

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has launched a two year Europe-wide campaign to tackle stress at work.

The prevalence of work-related stress in Europe is startling, says EU-OSHA. Its latest pan-European opinion poll revealed that 51% of workers find work-related stress to be common in their workplace and four in ten workers think that stress is not handled well in their organisation.

However, EU-OSHA believes that together employers and workers can successfully manage and prevent work-related stress and psychosocial risks, and the Healthy Workplaces Campaign aims to help companies do just that.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) has renewed its call for a review of the Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) system in Scotland, following the publication of the FAI findings into the deaths of 16 men in the Miller Helicopter tragedy in the North Sea on 1st April 2009,

In making the call, Grahame Smith, STUC General Secretary, commented that it was vitally important that lessons are learned as soon as possible after fatal events such as the helicopter crash, and that are recommendations are put in place to avoid further loss of life.

“The efforts of Sheriff Derek Pyle to bring forward the recommendations timeously to avoid further unnecessary suffering for the loved ones of those who lost their lives are very welcome,” he said. “However, we have to remember it has taken three weeks short of five years to get to this stage, an unacceptably long time for those who have lost most.”

Severely injured people, forced to gamble with their compensation to cover the cost of future support, could face having their damages cut further under Government proposals.

High-value damages payments are subject to a reduction to offset any interest that may be earned over time. Despite the fall in interest rates during the recession, the current “discount rate” has not been reviewed since 2001, which the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) warns is costing critically injured people the money they need for their care in the future.

“If a man is paralysed, for example, he is likely to need specialist equipment and therapies for the rest of his life. His damages to pay for these things are very carefully calculated by the courts, but under the current discount rate that money is being reduced too far and there is a very real danger it could run out,” explained APIL’s president Matthew Stockwell.