Page 10 - Pharmacy Appeals 1/4/04 to 31/3/05

NHS Indemnity NHS Indemnity

C l i n i c a l N e g l i g e n c e - D e f i n i t i o n

1. Clinical negligence is defined as:

“A breach of duty of care by members of the health care professions employed by NHS
bodies or by others consequent on decisions or judgements made by members of those
professions acting in their professional capacity in the course of employment, and which
are admitted as negligent by the employer or are determined as such through the legal
process.

2. In this definition “breach of duty of care” has its legal meaning. NHS bodies will need to
take legal advice in individual cases, but the general position will be that the following
must all apply before liability for negligence exists:

2.1 There must have been a duty of care owed to the person treated by the relevant
professional(s);

2.2 The standard of care appropriate to such duty must not have been attained and
therefore the duty breached, whether by action or inaction,
advice given or failure to advise;

2.3 Such a breach must be demonstrated to have caused the injury and therefore the
resulting loss complained about by the patient;

2.4 Any loss sustained as a result of the injury and complained about by the person
treated must be of a kind that the courts recognize and for
which they allow compensation; and

2.5 The injury and resulting loss complained about by the person treated must have
been reasonably foreseeable as a possible consequence of the breach.

3 This booklet is concerned with NHS indemnity for clinical negligence and does not cover
indemnity for any other liability such as product liability,
employers liability or liability for NHS trust board members.

* The NHS (Clinical Negligence Scheme) Regulations 1996, which established the Clinical Negligence Scheme for
Trusts,’ defines clinical negligence in terms of ‘...a liability in tort owed by a member to a third party in respect of or
consequent upon personal injury or loss arising out of or in connection with any breach of a duty of care owed by that
body to any person in connection with the diagnosis of any illness, or the care or treatment of any patient, in
consequence of any act or omission to act on the part ‘of a person employed or engaged by a member in connection
with any relevant function of that member’.