Fundamental Aspects of Legal, Ethical and Professional Issues in Nursing 2nd Edition by Sally Carvalho & Maggie Reeves & Jacquie Orford

Author:Sally Carvalho & Maggie Reeves & Jacquie Orford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Law, Ethics, Professionalism, Accountability, Advocacy, Nursing, Negligence, Values, Consent, Autonomy, Communications, Values
ISBN: 9781856424462
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Activity

Read the scenarios presented below, which are based on real negligence cases, to test your understanding. Use the four components that have to be proved by the claimant and decide for each:

Who was negligent?

How was their duty of care breached? Were the defendant’s actions reasonable?

What harm was caused? Was it foreseeable?

Was causation directly a result of the breach of duty of care?

Scenario 1

In the cases Wilsher v Essex Health Authority [1986] and Wilsher v Essex AHA [1988] (Dimond 2008, McHale and Fox 2007) a premature baby required oxygen therapy in the neonatal unit. This needed careful and continuous monitoring of oxygen concentrations in the baby’s blood via a probe inserted into a blood vessel. A junior doctor inserted the probe into a vein instead of an artery. A senior doctor also made the same mistake. As a result, inaccurate oxygen levels were recorded. Because of this the baby was given too much oxygen by a nurse and suffered permanent damage to the retina of the eye and blindness.

All three practitioners owed a duty of care to the baby and the baby did suffer harm.

The nurse did not breach her duty of care because she administered oxygen based on the blood levels and could not have known that the doctors had incorrectly positioned the probe. Neither could the nurse be expected to recognise developing retinal damage as this was beyond her role and ability. She acted in a reasonable way.

The junior doctor did not breach his duty of care because, although he inserted the probe incorrectly, he had asked his superior to check it. The junior doctor’s actions were reasonable in asking for confirmation. The Bolam test applied.

The senior doctor was found negligent because he breached his duty of care by failing to notice that the probe was in the wrong place. This resulted in harm to the baby which was foreseeable.

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