Patient safety and litigation in the NHS post-COVID-19

We aren't living in normal times and all sorts of new and essential measures are taking place in the NHS to make sure that we can handle the COVID-19 crisis properly. The NHS is facing enormous challenges and staff are making heroic efforts. Patient safety issues, however, must never be forgotten and underestimated even in a crisis. When the pandemic dust eventually settles people will start to reflect on what has happened, this is basic human nature.

Some people may feel that they or their loved ones were treated improperly during the crisis and seek redress, raising the spectre of litigation. Patient safety and the spectre of litigation will not go away. Patients who have suffered negligent harm have a moral and legal right to sue for compensation. This right should never be compromised. However, a key issue remains of what happens when the patient's harm did not occur in normal times, but in the COVID-19 crisis? That the harm has occurred in a crisis is likened to a war zone.