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Some implications for nurses and managers of recent changes to the processing and hearing of medical negligence claims
Author(s) -
- Fletcher
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of nursing management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.925
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1365-2834
pISSN - 0966-0429
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2834.2000.00165.x
Subject(s) - delegate , medical negligence , scrutiny , judgement , discipline , process (computing) , psychology , medical education , medicine , nursing , public relations , law , political science , computer science , programming language , operating system
Aim This paper considers some possible implications for individual nurses and their managers of moves to delegate tasks formerly undertaken by medical practitioners to nurses, in the light of recent changes in the legal process, relating to the funding and the hearing of cases of medical negligence. Background It is suggested that the introduction of a system of conditional fees, under which lawyers will only recover their costs if they win cases, may lead to a more specialist approach to negligence claims and to greater scrutiny of medical evidence. The implications of the recent ‘Bolitho’ judgement, when judges for the first time subjected expert medical testimony to their own independent analysis, are also explored. Findings It is suggested that in the light of the disparities in the training of medical and nursing personnel and in their disciplinary processes, and in view of the lack of consensus about what training is necessary for those who will substitute for junior doctors, or represent themselves as ‘practitioners’, ‘specialists’, or ‘consultants’, that nurses may in the future find themselves more directly involved in civil proceedings.