Alex RKIn Paul and another v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1, the Supreme Court had to decide whether (and, if so, when) an individual can make a claim for psychiatric injury caused by witnessing the death or other horrifying event of a close relative as a result of earlier clinical negligence. In dismissing the three conjoined appeals, a majority of the Supreme Court held that, while doctors owe a duty of care to protect the health of their patients, they do not owe a duty of care to members of the patient’s close family to protect them against the risk of illness from the experience of witnessing the death or medical crisis of their relative from a condition which the doctor has negligently failed to diagnose or treat.
The (sometimes dense) reasoning of the majority to explain why earlier clinical negligence does not give rise to a claim on the part of family members who may have witnessed the consequent death is helpfully summarised in the press summary. At paragraph 139, towards the end of their judgment, the majority make a point of perhaps even wider relevance about the place of dying in our society:
139. There is no doubt that witnessing the death from disease of a close family member can have a powerful psychological impact additional to the grief and deep distress caused by the fact of the death. Whether that impact is damaging or may even help the grieving process must depend on many factors, including the vulnerability and circumstances of the individual who witnesses the event and the place, time and other circumstances in which the death occurs. The experience of seeing a person die or discovering their dead body is rarer today than it once was. Most deaths in the United Kingdom now occur in hospitals or other institutions such as care homes. But although social attitudes and expectations may be changing, we would not accept that our society has yet reached a point where the experience of witnessing the death of a close family member from disease is something from which a person can reasonably expect to be shielded by the medical profession. That is so whether the death is slow or sudden, occurs in a hospital, at home or somewhere else, and whether it be peaceful or painful for the dying person. We do not mean in any way to minimise the psychological effects which such an experience may have on the person’s parent, child or partner when we express our view that, in the perception of the ordinary reasonable person, such an experience is not an insult to health from which we expect doctors to take care to protect us but a vicissitude of life which is part of the human condition.
