Recommendation 17

It is clear to us that in its current form the clinical negligence process is failing to meet its objectives for both families and the healthcare system. Too often families are not provided with the appropriate, timely and compassionate support they deserve. For those delivering maternity care, the adversarial nature of litigation promotes a culture of blame instead of learning after a patient safety incident. Alternative approaches are already in place in other countries where the use of a threshold of ‘avoidability’ rather than ‘negligence’ to award compensation has helped to tackle the debilitating culture of blame, accelerate learning and provide timely support to patients and their families. We believe that adopting such an approach is an essential next step in shifting the culture in maternity services away from blame to one of learning.