Specialist High Court for Health

Doctors4Justice (D4J) have been campaigning for the creation of  the specialist High Court for Health.

This would, in our vision, deal with compensation to patients, in personal injury claims, deal with regulation of all health related professionals including social workers, pharmaceutical patents and matters arising around it.

Self-regulation of professionals does not work and many lives have been lost because of it.

We are aware of the defects in the functioning of today's High Court such as sexism (like in the lower tribunals) and other forms of prejudices.

It is extraordinary to see the difficulty judges have in assessing biases arising in the lower tribunals. Appeals are not successful to the High Court because of it.

There is a shocking amount of tolerance for individuals who have for example, slithered into Employment tribunals, General Medical Council and as many as possible regulators at the same time. There have been tribunal members who should  have been disciplined, but instead their contract has been repeatedly renewed. Bad, bad, bad.

Conflicts of Interest are not assessed even though a form declaring interests is completed by applicants who wish to sit on the tribunals. Sometimes, these forms are incomplete or there is failure to update them.

When there is negligence and malice on part of the tribunal member, regulators have absolutely no decency to deal with it. Such incredible whimpery bred through years of service has gone completely unchecked.

A quite ridiculous amount of problems exists in health regulation today. There is no video of the process and defendants or anyone else do not get audio recording at present, are not told for how long recordings are kept by tribunals, for example, MPTS (Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service). Outsiders are not given a free electronic copy of the transcripts. Press reporters write articles  of limited value rather than spend thousands of pounds on transcripts of the proceedings. Some journalists never attend the hearings but write about them as reporters of it.

There has been some progress over hundreds of years but there are always those who wish to subvert justice and even return it to the dark ages when professions were regulated by religious courts - church. For example, religious fanatics are free to destroy doctors at medical tribunals even today in UK.

HERE Azerbaijan judge demonstrates modern Information Technology in his court. The country is building a complex of over thirty courts all designed to be modern and well equiped with technology.

Meanwhile, England is so slow.

Recently, Ms Helen Hayes, Labour MP, asked in Parliament the current Health Minister Philip Dunne about the creation of the independent tribunal for all the professions as mentioned in Francis report.
His answer is on the link and it appears there are a number of stages to be overcome such as planned consultation about it.