Why are medicolegal issues important?

The quality record-keeping of a GP member is key to the defence of this claim.

The quality record-keeping of a GP member is key to the defence of this claim.

A patient makes a claim against an anaesthetist member following intra-operative accidental awareness, which she alleged resulted in psychiatric injury.

A patient makes a claim against an anaesthetist member following intra-operative accidental awareness, which she alleged resulted in psychiatric injury.

Baby T was eight weeks old when his mother brought him to his GP’s morning surgery. His mother had become increasingly concerned about his general irritability and frequent crying episodes, which lasted up to two hours. These had become apparent over the past three days, not settling with breast feeding.

Mr S was a 60-year-old lorry driver. He was overweight and smoked, and couldn’t walk far because he suffered with pain in his calves.

When Mrs C, a keen golfer in her early forties, began to experience constant pain in her lower back, she consulted a GP at her local surgery. Dr P took a history of slow onset of pain with restricted mobility. He did not examine her, but prescribed an NSAID and advised Mrs C to return in two weeks if there was no improvement.

Mr U has a hernia repair and is later diagnosed with lung cancer. He makes a claim against two surgeons involved, alleging it should have been identified sooner.

Dr Marika Davies, medicolegal consultant, looks at the recent case of GA v Greater Glasgow Health Board [2019] CSOH 31, where the death of a 77-year-old patient raised questions over where the liability for the negligence lay: the junior doctor or the consultant?

In this video, we look at how red flags for cauda equina syndrome were missed by both GP and hospital, leading to a costly claim.

Ms Q experienced a surgical complication while under the care of Dr G. In this video, find out how Medical Protection supported Dr G when Ms Q pursued a claim and made a complaint to the Medical Council.

Good medical records – whether electronic or handwritten – are essential for the continuity of care of your patients. Adequate medical records enable you or somebody else to reconstruct the essential parts of each patient contact without reference to memory. They should therefore be comprehensive enough to allow a colleague to carry on where you left off.

This video provides some valuable lessons in diagnosis, documentation and the information that needs to be communicated to patients.

A private neurosurgeon faces questions on consent, following a lumbar microdiscectomy sciatica and back pain.

A woman is seen by a consultant gynaecologist, scheduled to have a diagnostic laparoscopy and her copper IUD removed. After the laparoscopy the woman is in pain, which worsens as a diagnosis is missed.