What are the legal implications of ignoring hospital policies and procedures?

Abstract

Hospital policies and procedures are designed to help prevent patients being harmed during the course of their treatment. The same principles apply as they do in business: by implementing a process-driven approach to ensuring that every component of the product is manufactured to the highest possible specification, customer satisfaction and safety can be secured. The more safety conscious the business, such as aerospace engineering, the tighter the procedures and controls. Hospitals should be no different; they are dealing with life and death and, as such, straightforward, fully tested procedures that are put in place to eliminate medical negligence mistakes should not be ignored. So why, as medical negligence lawyers, do we still see failures by both hospitals and health professionals to follow well-established procedures resulting in serious harm to patients? And particularly when such failures can and do lead to legal sanctions resulting not only in the loss of reputation and livelihood but also, in extreme cases, to liberty? In this article, which is a personal view, I explore some of the reasons why some medical practitioners fail to follow procedures and policies and outline the sanctions, both civil and criminal, for that failure.