The Governments new initiative for helping victims of Health Service blunders

October 2005 - The Government have announced plans to introduce a new scheme aimed at assisting victims of medical negligence in claiming compensation.

The initiative has been devised to help reduce legal costs and make the process easier for genuine claimants by giving them the option to settle a complaint without recourse to litigation.

The plans are outlined on the Department of Health official website:

"Under the NHS Redress Bill published today, patients will no longer have to go to court to get compensation, care, apologies and investigations if something goes wrong with their NHS hospital treatment or care.

The NHS Redress Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to establish an NHS Redress Scheme and place a duty on providers and commissioners of hospital services to ensure patients receive a more consistent, speedy and appropriate response to clinical negligence. The scheme will cover low monetary value claims, with the initial upper limit expected to be set at £20,000. It is designed to offer patients a real alternative to litigation, avoiding the long delays and legal costs typical of the current system."

Other key elements of the NHS Redress Bill and Scheme include:

• Provision for patients to receive redress in the form of care.
  
• A duty on all scheme members to appoint an appropriate person responsible for learning from mistakes. 
  
• A more proactive approach to clinical negligence, with the onus no longer on the patient to initiate a claim. All scheme members  will be required to review adverse incidents and trigger the scheme themselves, where appropriate.

Visit the official site: Dept of Health

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