Litigation Authority (litigation + authority)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


A researcher's journey for clarity: clarifying liability and indemnity issues when carers take on a role in medicines management

JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRIC & MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 9 2008
J. CROWLEY bsc msc rn
A client attending a depot clinic in a mental health setting requested that her husband be enabled to give her injection. This request was followed up in a practice development project. Following the success of the project, the local National Health Service (NHS) Mental Health Trust supported a research project to explore the issues raised further. The Local Research Ethics Committee raised a question around carer liability. This question led to a 2-year liaison with the NHS Litigation Authority, the local NHS Trust's legal team, Royal College of Nursing and others. The journey clarified that liability for a carer was covered under the Third Party Liability Scheme, where the carer came under the umbrella of being an ,authorised voluntary worker'. While the experience delayed the research project, it was a significant learning opportunity in the NHS ethical approval system. [source]


Litigation related to airway and respiratory complications of anaesthesia: an analysis of claims against the NHS in England 1995,2007

ANAESTHESIA, Issue 6 2010
T. M. Cook
Summary Claims notified to the NHS Litigation Authority in England between 1995 and 2007 and filed under anaesthesia were analysed to explore patterns of injury and cost related to airway or respiratory events. Of 841 interpretable claims the final dataset contained 96 claims of dental damage, 67 airway-related claims and 24 respiratory claims. Claims of dental damage contributed a numerically important (11%), but financially modest (0.5%) proportion of claims. These claims predominantly described injury during tracheal intubation or extubation; a minority associated with electroconvulsive therapy led to substantial cost per claim. The total cost of (non-dental) airway claims was £4.9 million (84% closed, median cost £30 000) and that of respiratory claims was £3.3 million (81% closed, median £27 000). Airway and respiratory claims account for 12% of anaesthesia-related claims, 53% of deaths, 27% of cost and ten of the 50 most expensive claims in the dataset. Airway claims most frequently described events at induction of anaesthesia, involved airway management with a tracheal tube and typically led to hypoxia and patient death or brain injury. Airway trauma accounted for one third of airway claims and these included deaths from mediastinal injury at intubation. Pulmonary aspiration and tube misplacement, including oesophageal intubation, led to several claims. Among respiratory claims, ventilation problems, combined with hypoxia, were an important source of claims. Although limited clinical details hamper analysis, the data suggest that most airway and respiratory-related claims arise from sentinel events. The absence of clinical detail and denominators limit opportunities to learn from such events; much more could be learnt from a closed claim or sentinel event analysis scheme. [source]


Litigation related to regional anaesthesia: an analysis of claims against the NHS in England 1995,2007,

ANAESTHESIA, Issue 5 2010
K. Szypula
Summary We analysed 366 claims related to regional anaesthesia and analgesia from the 841 anaesthesia-related claims handled by the National Health Service Litigation Authority between 1995 and 2007. The majority of claims (281/366, 77%) were closed at the time of analysis. The total cost of closed claims was £12 724 017 (34% of the cost of the anaesthesia dataset) with a median (IQR [range]) of £4772 (£0,28 907 [£0,2 070 092]). Approximately half of the claims (186/366; 51%) were related to obstetric anaesthesia and analgesia and of the non-obstetric claims, the majority (148/180; 82%) were related to neuraxial block. The total cost for obstetric closed claims was £5 433 920 (median (IQR [range]) £5678 (£0,27 690 [£0,1 597 565]) while that for non-obstetric closed claims was £7 290 097 (£3337 (£0,31 405 [£0,2 070 062]). Non-obstetric claims were more likely to relate to severe outcomes than obstetric ones. The maximum values of claims were higher for claims related to neuraxial blocks and eye blocks than for peripheral nerve blocks. Despite many limitations, including lack of clinical detail for each case, the dataset provides a useful overview of the extent, patterns and cost associated with the claims. [source]


Litigation related to inadequate anaesthesia: an analysis of claims against the NHS in England 1995,2007

ANAESTHESIA, Issue 8 2009
R. Mihai
Summary Inadequate anaesthesia may cause distress to the patient and lead to medical litigation. All claims made to the NHS Litigation Authority 1995,2007 were obtained and the data was examined independently by all authors and classified. In a dataset of 1067 claims there were 161 cases of inadequate anaesthesia and data were suitable for analysis in 159: intra-operative awareness (79), brief awake paralysis (20) and inadequate regional anaesthesia (60). The total cost of closed claims was £3.2m. Cost was incurred in 100% of claims of brief awake paralysis, 87% of claims of awareness and 80% of claims of inadequate regional blockade. Mean cost of closed claims was £32 680 for anaesthetic awareness, £29 345 for inadequate regional blockade and £24 364 for brief awake paralysis. Inadequate anaesthesia accounts for 19% of anaesthesia-related claims in the NHS in England. Strategies that reduce anaesthetic awareness, drug errors and inadequate regional blockade are known and their improved implementation is likely to reduce such claims. [source]