In a majority verdict, Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled that doctors “do not owe a duty of care to their patients’ families to protect them against psychiatric illness that might be caused from witnessing the death of loved ones”.
The Law Gazette reports that the claimants had sought compensation for psychiatric illnesses caused by seeing the death of a close relative in distressing circumstances. In each of the three cases, the death was allegedly caused by the doctor or health authority’s negligence.
However, all three cases were dismissed by a majority of six to one.
The judges said common law “does not recognise one person as having any legally compensable interest in the physical well-being of another”.
“The law affords compensation to the victim but not to others who suffer harm in consequence of the victim’s injuries or death, however severely affected they may be.”
The judgment overturns earlier authorities: North Glamorgan NHS Trust v Walters (2002), which was wrongly decided, and Sion v Hampstead Health Authority (1994), Shorter v Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (2015) and Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Ronayne (2015), which were correctly decided on a wrong basis.
The judgment said that a doctor who treats a patient does not enter into a doctor-patient relationship with any member of that family, that the responsibilities of a medical practitioner do not extend to protecting the family from exposure to traumatic experiences.
Society has not yet reached a point where the experience of witnessing the death of a close relative “is something from which a person can reasonably expect to be shielded by the medical profession”.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Precedent-setting UK ruling extends legal duty of care to associated third parties
Duty of care is also for non-medically qualified administrative staff
Australian court says minister has ‘duty of care’ to protect youth