This interesting case has just been heard in the Court of Appeal. The
legal story in the Times Law Report consists of some dense legal
commentary, but essentially the ambulance service sent an ambulance late
so that a pregnant asthmatic woman suffered a respiratory arrest on the
way to hospital and subsequently suffered brain damage and a miscarriage
(it arrived after 38 minutes).
They said that if in an emergency an ambulance was sent for and did not
attend or took a long time to attend there was a foreseeable risk of
physical harm. This put the case in a different category from economic
loss against which it might be possible to insure.
Although the ambulance service had cost constraints etc, it operated in an
area similar to that of hospitals, doctors and many others (and different
from that of a fire or Police service) as demonstrated by the facts of
this case.
A particular problem was that a search for alternative means of transport
may be abandoned in the knowledge that an ambulance was, "on its way."
I suspect this will get to the House of Lords, but there will be an
interesting result!
Best wishes,
Rowley Cottingham
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