The News International Smokescreen

The revelation that journalists and private investigators working for News International have been hacking into mobile phone messages and using underhand means to obtain confidential medical records and financial information is truly shocking.

However, what is equally shocking is that leaders of our 3 major political parties are using these revelations to court public opinion.  Further the media furore is a smoke screen behind which 3 Bills going through Parliament which will have a more significant and far reaching effect upon all of us.

The Legal Aid, Punishment of Offenders Bill which has already reached the Committee stage in the Houses of Parliament seeks to deny justice to the most injured and vulnerable of our society.  If all the clauses in this Bill become law people with serious and persisting injuries, caused through the negligence of healthcare workers will be denied access to justice.

At present all children and any adult who qualifies financially is entitled to legal aid to investigate and pursue a claim for compensation if they have been injured in the course of healthcare.  The Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill seeks to take away that right at a stroke.  The Government explains to us that this is alright because solicitors will act for those people on a no win no fee agreement.  The situation is no so simple, first an individual may have to pay two to three thousand pounds for initial legal costs before a solicitor will consider entering into a no win no fee agreement.  And then if the case is successful up to a quarter of their damages may be needed to pay for the solicitor’s success fee.

The Public Bodies Bill will postpone the appointment of a Chief Coroner for the foreseeable future.  Following a protest led by the charity INQUEST and supported by AvMA and The Royal British Legion, the act to abolish the role of Chief Coroner was amended but the amendment to defer appointment into the future is far from satisfactory.  At present it is very difficult to challenge a Coroner’s decision, whether to hold an inquest or not, whether to admit certain evidence at the inquest or a verdict.  At present the only way to review a coroners decision is by judicial review.  One of the key roles of a Chief Coroner was to consider appeals (by family and friends of the deceased) on these decisions made by coroners.

Finally, the Health and Social Care Bill.  Many will be aware that following challenges to the proposal that consortiums led by GPs were to take over as the purchasers of care for their patients the Government undertook a review.  However, the decision on who leads the consortium of purchasers has only been modified slightly.  It may, at first seem to many that this commissioning has little to do with an individual's healthcare.  However, if a patient neeeds day surgery and finds instead of being referred locally they must travel to a hospital 30 or 40 miles away simply because that hospital will do the procedure cheaper the patient may feel that they are very significantly affected by this change in the law.

This charity will continue to tweet, blog and comment in opposition to such changes that affect the life, liberty and access to justice for the citizens of this country, in particular for patients.  How can it be that a National Health Service, provided by the Government for its people can injure one of its patients yet the Government itself denies access to justice through removal of legal aid?

In addition to our activities on the social media sites we are also working behind the scenes to lobby MPs, brief journalists and press to provide evidence to Government Select Committees.

Our Legal Director, Catherine Hopkins will be giving evidence to the Scrutiny Committee on the Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill on Thursday 14^th July.

The Coalition Government reverses key reforms to our Coroners system

If you are unfortunate to loose a friend or relative in circumstances where the cause of death is violent, uncertain or accidental you may find yourself meeting a coroner, coroner’s officer or attending an inquest for the first time. 

How friends and families are treated and what answers they receive to their questions at the inquest will depend entirely on the way an individual coroner runs his court.  Each coroner covers a particular area and he or she is responsible for investigating all deaths occurring in that area that are referred to him.  There is no consistency between different coroners’ approach to their investigations and how the inquest itself is conducted.

If a family is unhappy with the outcome of a Coroner’s investigation, after an informal approach to the coroner himself the only recourse is to Judicial Review.  This process is highly complicated, expensive and permission has to be granted for a review which may be refused.

While some coroners are also doctors many coroners have no medical knowledge or experience beyond what they have learned on the job.  Yet they are not compelled to obtain medical advice or evidence even in the most complex medical deaths (although many do).

Because there is no central organization governing the role of coroners and their courts there is no opportunity to spot problems in a particular area.  Time and again we have seen scandals involving particular doctors or hospitals (Shipman, Gosport War Memorial Hospital and Stafford Hospital come immediately to mind) but with no central system of overview it is difficult to spot trends

Last year AvMA and many other organizations involved in helping bereaved families welcomed a new law that was intended to put these problems right.  The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 included three important reforms:-

1. The appointment of a Chief Coroner
2. The introduction of medical advisors for every coroner
3. An appeals process that was straightforward and accessible to ordinary people

The Chief coroner was to have supervised a system of reporting, enabling trends to be spotted, ensuring uniformity of training and dissemination of information.  He would also oversee a new appeals process and each coroner would have the benefit of sitting with a medical advisor.

After years of consultation and a brief period of celebration that the major concerns about the coronial system may be about to be addressed we heard  recently that the government intends to abolish the role of chief coroner, delay indefinitely the appointment of medical advisors and that there will not be an appeals process.  The news was broken to us and fellow representatives from other NGOs including INQUEST and The Royal British Legion   at a meeting called by the Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly..

And now legislation is before parliament to do just that in the form of the Public Bodies Bill that reaches the committee stage in the House of Lords on Tuesday 23 November.

AvMA together with INQUEST and The Royal British Legion are calling for the government to urgently to reconsider its decision to abolish this key role that would ensure fairness and justice for bereaved families.  Baroness Finlay of Llandaff has put down an amendment to the Bill removing reference to the abolition of the roles of Chief Coroner and Medical advisor which we strongly support