Change in the nature of doctor-patient relationship

Ed Madden, BL, looks at a recent England and Wales Court of Appeal case in which the Court examined the enhanced obligation on the part of doctors to involve patients in decisions concerning their treatment. In January 2017, the England and Wales Court of Appeal delivered its judgment in an appeal brought on behalf of a 14-year-old boy with cerebral palsy against a decision of the High Court that a hospital trust was not causally liable for his condition; the injury resulted from a hypoxic ischaemic insult to the brain caused by a relatively short period of cord compression prior…