© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group & Institute for Healthcare Improvement
EDITORIAL
"No fault" compensation
Compensation as a duty of care: the case for "no fault"
Smith & Nephew Foundation Professor of Clinical Safety Research, Department of Surgical Oncology and Technology, Imperial College School of Science, Technology and Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital Campus, London W2 1NY, UK; c.vincent@imperial.ac.uk
An optimal compensation system should compensate injuries when they occur, but also reduce errors and harm. The tort system used in most countries is increasingly anachronistic and an obstacle to progress on patient safety. A "no fault" system of compensation such as that used in New Zealand may result in better quality of care.
Keywords: medical injury; patient risk; "no fault" system; medical error
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Retrospective medical record reviews suggest that 4–16% of hospitalised patients suffer harm, which is judged preventable in about half of cases. In the study by Davis et al1 published in this issue of QSHC, 5.2% of admissions in New Zealand led to a preventable in-hospital event, a similar rate to that in the UK and within the broad range of other studies. Clearly these results are important for New Zealand health care, but they also have a special significance because of New Zealand’s "no fault" compensation system. To understand this it is necessary briefly to consider the basis and justification for different approaches to compensation for medical injury.
In most countries compensation for medical injury is based on the tort system or other "fault based" models. The claimant—the injured patient—must take legal action to prove duty of care, injury, causation, and negligence. In a "no fault"
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Preventable in-hospital medical injury under the "no fault" system in New Zealand
- P Davis, R Lay-Yee, R Briant, and A Scott
Qual. Saf. Health Care 2003 12: 251-256.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
