Medical Negligence and Discipline: Examining medical negligence in the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal

Abstract

Professor Joanna Manning has posed the question of whether the reluctance of the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) to make a disciplinary finding with respect to negligence under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (“the 2003 Act”), has gone too far. This paper examines that question by analysing the decisions of the Tribunal on negligence and assessing some of the common themes that emerge in the cases where the Tribunal have declined to make a disciplinary finding.

This paper concludes that while the majority of negligence charges before the Tribunal result in a disciplinary finding, there are problematic themes emerging in the Tribunal’s recent decisions which may suggest reluctance by the Tribunal to make such findings in the future. The impact of this seeming reluctance is undoubtedly the erosion of the Tribunal’s self-stated purpose to protect the public and maintain professional standards which in turn reflects the purpose of the 2003 Act to “protect the health and safety of members of the public by providing for mechanisms to ensure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practice their professions”.