Introduction
Negligence in medicine is a phenomenon that highly affects the quality of medical care and the relationship between the doctor and the patient. Different approaches qualify as the violation of the Tort law clause. One of the aspects of consideration engulfs the interaction between a client and a practitioner as a contractual agreement, and the transgression of the conditions renders punishment to the offender. An excellent example is the failure of a nurse to seek consent from the sick person regarding a particular diagnosis and prescription. It is essential to attain permission from the convalescent regarding the abound procedures and educating the personnel regarding the significance and consequences. The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 establishes that the physician has the right to offer services to an individual professionally with the approval of the counterpart. Further, the casualty upholds the right of grievance redressal from the Consumer courts. The rules and regulations addressing the consequences for laxness within the constitution enhance the standard service delivery system within the healthcare sector.
Discussion
One prominent factor in medicine is patient confidentiality, and a breach leads to profound consequences. However, in ABC v. St. George’s Healthcare NHS Trust and others in 2017, the issue featured a dynamic twist of events (Gilbar & Foster, 2018). It is the duty of the doctor to uphold the privacy of a client despite the presented circumstances. Previously, ABC’s father was convicted of manslaughter for killing her mother, but later, the sentence was changed to hospitalization due to the diagnosis of Huntington’s disease. The father requested that the diagnosis remains confidential from his two children, that is, ABC and the sister. After ABC got pregnant, she requested the medical history, mainly her father’s diagnosis, after the sentencing, but he denied her consent to access the information (Wade, 2020). The main reason engulfed the fear of ABC preferring an abortion over the lifetime scare of the condition.
During the medical checkups, a clinician accidentally revealed the details of her father’s diagnosis to ABC after she had given birth. ABC proceeded to the courts, filing the case against NHS Trust for clinical negligence. According to the complainant, it was the responsibility of the practitioners to offer adequate healthcare information regarding her pregnancy to position her for the choice to do an abortion or keep the pregnancy (McMillan, 2020). In this case, the turf involved the necessity of breaching the patient’s confidentiality to save the life of another client in addition to the moral code of conduct for the dynamic relationship.
Rule
In the first ruling, the court ruled for NHS Trust, arguing that it is the mandate of the health practitioners to uphold patient confidentiality. However, the appeal posed a different overview in the ruling. In this case, the panel ruled for ABC due to the duty of care that supersedes the client’s privacy. According to the ruling, ABC’s condition was a special circumstance that justified the alteration of the regulation since it led to the alteration of the consequential medical conditions (Wade, 2020). Therefore, withholding crucial information overwhelmed the family’s well-being over the necessity to value the principle of professional conduct.
Type of Action
The action encompassed determining the form of compensation offered to the aggrieved family due to the negligence in the duty of care from NHS Trust. In this case, the institution took charge of paying the bills regarding the child’s medical condition.
Facts
There are distinct facts derived from the case analysis due to the interdependent variables that render proficiency in medicine. One of the facts from the case encompassed the significance of patient confidentiality. It is the duty of the healthcare personnel to uphold the privacy of a client upon request, and a breach of the contract features profound consequences (Del Olmo, 2021). Another fact enshrined ABC’s right to access prominent information regarding her pregnancy and the repercussions from her medical history. In this case, it is the duty of care for the doctors to ensure the patronage makes informed decisions, such as retaining pregnancy despite the inherent condition.
Decision/Holding
The decision from the appellate court fosters a profound insight regarding the negligence clause within the field of medicine. The holding was a considerate feature and an integration of both moral and virtue overview during the ruling process. On the one hand, the professional code articulates the necessity of doctors and physicians to uphold the ethical practice of withholding a patient’s information, and the magistrate appreciates the condition (Goel, 2020). On the other hand, the ruling judge focuses on the flexibility of the regulations to enhance the well-being of people. The law complements the welfare of individuals affected to determine better action (Lupton, 2018). However, in the case of ABC’s father, he was using the clause for exploitation and personal gain regardless of the medical risk. Although ABC gave birth to a child, she was denied the right of choice from the stipulations of duty of care from the doctor due to the limitation regarding details’ concealment.
My Analysis
The ruling from the court of appeal provides a justifiable insight regarding the attribute of the law. Negligence in the medical field threatens the quality of care among patients under different spectrum (Grosso, 2018). In this case, I believe it is essential that the relevant stakeholders adopt an approach that appreciates both ethical and moral practices. Although ABC’s father holds the right to patient confidentiality, it is an aspect that becomes a liability to another aggrieved party due to the lack of informed consent. In my opinion, laxness offers insight regarding the interdependent relationship across dynamic stakeholders and professional responsibilities. The rules and regulations aimed at enhancing the quality of living among people based on promoting liberal access to information.
Conclusion
Negligence in the field of medicine is a multidimensional phenomenon, as evident in the case analysis. The ruling in ABC v. NHS Trust is a framework that provides a complex and integral value of the law, moral, and ethical constructs. In this case, the judge considers ABC’s right to choose over the essence of the patient’s confidentiality. Although ABC’s father upholds the concealment, he lacks a reasonable ground against ABC’s intention to make an informed decision regarding her pregnancy. There are different variables that enhance the magistrate’s ideology. One of the concepts engulfs the moral conduct that supersedes the ethical code. A virtue that exceeds the importance of law takes preference and renders the ideal decision. As a result, the ABC’S father and NHS Trust lost the case based on the importance of considering the principled construct of the frameworks. The relationship between a doctor and a patient is contractual, and the violation of the conditions, mainly the duty of care, leads to imminent consequences.
References
Del Olmo, J. C. B. (2021). Medical Act and Negligence: Ethical Concerns. In Bioethics in Medicine and Society. IntechOpen.
Gilbar, R., & Foster, C. (2018). It’s arrived! relational autonomy comes to court: ABC v ST George’s Healthcare NHS Trust [2017] EWCA 336. Medical Law Review, 26(1), 125-133.
Goel, A. (2020). Liability in Medical Negligence Cases: A Comparative Study of Indian and American Laws & Policies. In Proceedings of the 18th International RAIS Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (pp. 76-81). Scientia Moralitas Research Institute.
Grosso, S. (2018). What is reasonable and what can be proved as reasonable: reflections on the role of evidence-based medicine and clinical practice guidelines in medical negligence claims. Annals Health L., 27, 74.
Lupton, M. (2018). Some ethical and legal consequences of the application of artificial intelligence in the field of medicine. Trends Med, 18(4), 100147.
McMillan, C. (2020). ABC v St George’s Healthcare Trust and Ors: A new duty of care?.
Wade, L. (2020). Landmark Clinical Negligence Cases. The Lawyer Portal.