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James Badenoch QC asks whether it is right that members of the medical profession should be subject to litigation when things go wrong. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Research Report presents an initial attempt to apply the theory of counterfactual thinking to study the cognitive processes that underlie judgments of negligence. Subjects reviewed a summary of an appellate case involving a work accident and listed all the ways in which the accident could have been undone (mutated). Participant's evaluations of the defendant's behavior were influenced by the number of mutations of the plaintiff's conduct. Exploratory path analysis suggested that counterfactual thinking may have its greatest impact not as a direct influence on verdicts and damages, but rather as an indirect influence impacting verdicts through lower level judgments about the normality of the defendant's behavior and the standard of care. The results also suggest that contrary to the law, subjects base their negligence verdicts on assessments of normal care along with due care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annual spending on the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts has quadrupled in ten years, from £0.4 billion in 2006–2007 to £1.6 billion in 2016–2017. Here, Roger Kirby discusses what the recent tsunami of clinical negligence claims means for the medical profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any doctor can make a mistake: the important thing is to be honest with yourself and your patient, to take responsibility for the error, and to learn from it. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complaints to the General Medical Council (GMC) and litigation against doctors are currently rising at an alarming rate, with an increase of 23 per cent from 7153 in 2010 to 8781 in 2011.1 This equates to a 1:64 chance of the GMC investigating any individual doctor. Of all the causes of dissatisfaction among patients, one of the most common is the feeling that they 'were not told' that a particular outcome might result from a given treatment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]