English Medical Law – Fair, Just and Reasonable as Part of the Caparo Test in Establishing Duty of Care.
The issue whether it would be fair, just and reasonable to establish a duty of care can be observed based on these cases. These include Palmer v Tees Health Authority, or Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, and White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire as well as Goodwill v BPAS. In Palmer v Tees Health Authority, the issue is whether the Health Authority owed a duty of care to the victim’s mother who suffered from nervous shock due to the death of her daughter at the hands of mentally disordered patient. Besides that, another issue is whether the Health Authority owed any duty to the society as the they were aware of the patient’s violent nature on discharge from the hospital. It was held by the Court of Appeal that although it was foreseeable for the patient to harm someone, it could not have foreseen that a particular member of society would have been harmed. It was not fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care on the Health Authority. The importance of proximate relationship was emphasized in the case. However in the case of Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire and White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, a duty of care may arise between a doctor and third party if the third party suffers later post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing negligent medical are. In order for this action to be fulfilled, there should be a close relationship between the primary and secondary victims, the secondary victim must have been close to the incident in time and space,the secondary victim must have directly witnessed the incident or its aftermath with his or her unaided senses and the secondary victim must have suffered from a recognizable psychiatric illness due to the event. Goodwill v BPAS was the case, where the doctor might has a duty of care towards the married patient’s spouse while giving contraceptive advice to a patient. This is because, the doctor could have reasonably be expected to have the spouse in mind at the time the advice was given. As a conclusion the duty of care is unlikely to be found outside the doctor patient relationship except in the cases of Alcock, White or Goodwill.
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