Dekinar Recording: Causation in Clinical Negligence Claims

News | Fri 21st Apr, 2023

In yesterday’s webinar, Paul Stagg, Ella Davis and Susanna Bennett spoke about causation in clinical negligence claims. They covered causation issues which frequently crop up in practice, including:

• The difficulties of establishing causation in consent claims: the subjective test, the influence of hindsight on claimants’ evidence, and the relevance of evidence of what patients normally do;
• Material contribution causation in cases of acute profound hypoxic ischaemia, following the decision of CNZ v Royal Bath Hospitals NHSFT [2023] EWHC 19 (KB);
• The recoverability of damages where the complaint is the loss of a chance of a better medical outcome;
• The relevance of the “but for” causation test to cases where scope of duty is in issue, for example:
  • Consent claims in which C would, absent the negligence, have had surgery on a later date;
  • Cases of delayed surgery in which a recognised (non-negligent) complication materialised.

If you missed it, you can view it here: