16

Clinical negligence litigation hinders patient safety learning, contrasting with no-blame investigations.

Conclusion
Clinical negligence litigation stands in stark contrast to best practice in terms of patient safety. Gains are made by careful system-wide analysis rather than the search for individual blame. The creation of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body as a statutory body which will undertake no-blame safe space investigations maps out the direction of travel for reducing harm and improving patient safety. Maintaining a costly and adversarial litigation system is evermore at odds with our 58 NHS litigation reform understanding of how the NHS should respond to failures in care. The administrative body’s investigative process would generate a rich, more usable source of data which could be returned to the NHS to improve patient care.
Paragraph Reference
139
Addressee Bodies
Department of Health and Social Care
Timeline
Recommendation age 4.1 yrs
Report published 28 Apr 2022