A landmark ruling has clarified that doctors owe no duty of care towards the family of a patient they are treating. It makes clear that if you witness the distressing death of a loved one as a result of medical negligence, you cannot claim compensation for psychiatric injuries.

The personal injury lawyers at award-winning firm ParrisWhittaker have years of experience recovering compensation for the victims of medical negligence; as well as supporting their families in the aftermath.

The UK's highest court, the Supreme Court, recently ruled that a doctor's duty of care does not extend to families who witnessed the deaths of (or serious injury) loved ones following medical negligence. The ruling has strong persuasive authority on the courts in Jamaica, The Bahamas and in the surrounding region.

Doctor's duty of care

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals owe their patients a duty of care to take reasonable care and skill in their care and treatment. If a patient suffers injury, or their condition worsens as a direct result of medical negligence, such as substandard treatment or a failure to diagnose or treat, the patient deserves to be compensated.

In civil law, so-called 'secondary victims' might be entitled to claim compensation for psychiatric damage where they witnessed firsthand a close family member being seriously or fatally injured in accidents caused by third party negligence. This is an exception to the general rule that an individual is not entitled to compensation for the effect of someone's death or injury on them.

In this case, the issue arose in the medical context: can a patient's family member claim compensation if they saw their loved one die or suffer serious injury as a result of negligence?

What happened?

The Supreme Court heard three cases together in which family members claimed compensation for psychiatric injury resulting from seeing their loved ones die in distressing circumstances. Their deaths were allegedly the result of medical negligence.

The claimants argued that the exception to the general rule should be extended to include cases where the family witnessed death or serious injury from a medical condition which the defendant negligently failed to diagnose and treat.

The court rejected their cases.

It ruled that whereas accidents are discrete events, and it's usually clearcut whether someone present directly witnessed the accident, medical negligence cases are not analogous. There is usually no event comparable to an accident; and there are other variables, such as the level of trauma suffered. Furthermore, claimants will not be in fear of their own safety as they may well be in an accident context.

The court concluded that it could not be said that a doctor who treats a patient enters into a doctor-patient relationship with any member of the patient's family and thereby assumes responsibility for their health.

The outcome will be disappointing for those individuals who have suffered emotional and mental trauma after witnessing the death (or serious injuries) of a family member following medical negligence.

Footnotes

1 Polmear and another v Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.