Access to justice

When something goes wrong and causes harm, it is vital that patients and their families are dealt with fairly and honestly, and can get the support, answers and outcomes they are entitled to expect. That is what we mean by “justice”.

We find that after avoidable harm in healthcare, what people want most of all is to know the truth and that lessons will be learnt to help prevent the same thing happening to someone else.

However, it is also perfectly reasonable to want compensation for harm that has been caused due to negligence, or to see people held to account for gross departures from patient safety or attempting to cover up.

In this section you can read about some of the key barriers to access to justice which we are concerned about, and what we are doing to address them.