Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Harrington of Watford and Guy Opperman

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I will not deal with it in any great detail—I mean no disrespect to him—because I wish to go back to the point I was making. We must have a system within the medical profession that allows its members to start to accept that it is perfectly understandable that mistakes are made, because they are human beings, and that there is insurance to cover such matters when they take place. With the best will in the world, that should be accepted. That recognition, however, does not exist to the degree that it should.

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that that phenomenon is unique to the medical profession? Does it apply to many other professions, including his former profession, the legal profession, where mistakes are not openly broadcast and are dealt with internally, often unofficially, rather than publicly?

[Guy Opperman]

I did not expect to be attacked by my own side for my former profession. I agree that we all need to accept that when we make mistakes we should own up to them, and that goes for politicians, too.

In fairness, I should speak to the amendments. Surely the point is that there should be a statutory duty of candour in the health service, and that is what is missing. If it needs any encouragement, I know of three separate reports that deal with it: the Levinson and Gallagher report, “Disclosing Harmful Medical Errors to Patients”; the Robins report in the Law Society Gazette; and “Why do patients complain?”, from the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. All three reports, and reports from across the world—there is good evidence in Australia and New Zealand—show that where there is openness and admission of blame, the amount of litigation subsequently goes down, rather than up. For nine out of every 10 clients I saw as a professional barrister practising on clinical negligence, the first two questions they asked were: “Why did they not apologise?”; and “What will be done to ensure that it does not happen to anyone else?” Nine out of 10 clients would fully understand that no doctor gets up in the morning and makes a mistake deliberately. They understand that it is because they are making clinical errors under intense pressure. In that respect, those are the things that need to be addressed by the Health Secretary, rather than in the Bill.