Health and safety legislation increasingly used to prosecute in healthcare cases

The Crown Prosecution Service appears to be increasingly moving to prosecute health care providers under the Principal Act for failings in the area of medical care. In the latest case, a hospital trust has been prosecuted and fined yesterday for breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in the circumstances of its failure to adequately manage 2 senior house officers who were employed by it to provide medical care for a patient who died in June 2000 following routine surgery. Post-operative infection, which was permitted to go unchecked and unreported to more senior doctors, claimed the 31-year-old's life.

At Winchester Crown Court, Southampton University Hospitals Trust admitted the breach for which it was fined £100,000, with costs of £10,000, for its failure to adequately supervise and manage the work of the 2 doctors at the time, who were earlier convicted of manslaughter for which they received suspended custodial sentences.
This is believed to be the Trust's first health and safety conviction.