> I think that a duty of care is exercised to relatives both in
> preventing
> them from witnessing a "traumatic" resuscitation and allowing them to
> witness others to help them with their bereavement. Like in
> the Sheffield
> Footbal Stadium fire, relatives might be able to claim
> compensation for PTSD
> if we do not take reasonable care in how we exercise our duty.
There may be a prima facie duty of care to relatives to prevent psychiatric
illness. This applies mainly in cases where one's negligence in treating a
patient (Tredget and Tredget v Bexley) (causing their death) has given rise
to PTSD in the relative. However, in cases of pure psychiatric damage, the
foreseeability part of the duty of care is different to that in physical
damage. The duty is to prevent recognised psychiatric illness that would be
foreseeable in a person of reasonable fortitude (the duty of care with
physical damage is to prevent damage that would be foreseeable in that
person). It seems pretty clear from the papers cited earlier that PTSD as a
result of not having witnessed a death is not reasonably foreseeable in a
person of reasonable fortitude.
Duty of care to others where that would involve a breach of confidentiality
to the patient has a tighter test still- I'm not aware of any UK case (but
am pleased to be corrected) where such a duty was held to exist. The
American cases where such a duty was held were ones where failure to breach
confidentiality could foreseeably result in death of the claimant. There is
always the possibility of a court extending the duty of care, but to
establish a new duty of care, a court must decide it be in the public
interest to do so. I don't know if breach of patient confidentiality to
prevent PTSD would be held in the public interest (as this would effectively
establish a routine duty to breach confidentiality)
This is a little bit irrelevant in any case: not having relatives present is
an accepted standard of care by a reasonable body of medical opinion.
Matt Dunn
Warwick
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