Blog
21st July 2017
The term ‘never events’ is so dramatic, so final, that it sounds hypothetical – apocryphal, even – but Never Events really do occur in our hospitals, and with alarming frequency. The term is used as a label by the NHS to describe entirely preventable serious incidents whose occurrence potentially, or actually, jeopardises patient safety. Not all Never Events result in serious patient harm or death;…
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13th July 2017
A recent Court of Appeal hearing seems to have provided a positive answer to this very question. The judges in Cameron -v- Hussain (May 2017) considered the case of a car crash victim attempting to claim damages against a driver who had left the scene before being identified. Before this landmark decision, road traffic accident victims were only allowed to claim compensation in court if…
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07th July 2017
With the UK’s base interest rate currently standing at its lowest level since the Bank of England was founded in 1694 and little prospect of a significant rise in the near future, it seems likely that low interest rates are here to stay, at least until the end of 2017, significantly outstripped by annual inflation of around 3.5 per cent. So if you are investing…
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30th June 2017
The Court of Appeal recently confirmed that, where there is particular risk to another road user, a motorist has a duty to make a final check in the mirrors before completing a turn. This may sound like simple common sense to many drivers, but the case of McGeer v McIntosh provides useful clarification of the duty owed by motorists to other road users, especially cyclists…
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27th June 2017
George Ide’s private client team was involved in a recent Court of Protection case that clarifies the law concerning how best to protect the interests of an adult whose lack of mental capacity prevents them from managing their own affairs. In this particular case, our client received a personal injury settlement after an accident in which he sustained a serious head injury that left him…
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15th June 2017
Not everyone gets excited about data protection – until, that is, it comes to light that miscellaneous personal information has been captured and secretively stored, or is being used in an alarming manner. You may be surprised to learn that the UK’s current electronic information legislation dates back to the last century: the oft-quoted Data Protection Act was passed in 1998, no less than 19…
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05th June 2017
The family law community has reacted with shock to a recent Court of Appeal judgement upholding an earlier court decision that refused to grant Mrs Owens a divorce despite a hostile and protracted court case. The highly unusual case involving a multimillionaire mushroom farmer and his wife centred around Mrs Owens’ claim that her husband had behaved unreasonably. Mr Owens defended the divorce petition, arguing…
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05th June 2017
Recent news that former breast consultant Ian Paterson has been convicted and sentenced to 15 years for carrying out hundreds of needless operations is surely to be welcomed as some recompense for the despair and distress of those patients who, as it turns out, underwent unnecessary intrusive operations. But how did it come to this in the first place? After the event it seems quite…
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05th June 2017
How lovely to see cute little Prince George stealing the show at his Aunty Pippa’s wedding this spring. Come September, he is expected to attend Thomas’s Battersea, a London preparatory school where fees start at just under £6,000 per term. Now you may gasp at the cost, but today’s reality is that many ordinary families are deciding to invest significant sums in a private education…
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05th June 2017
According to divorce and marriage data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), it seems the ‘silver generation’ is once again bucking the trends: the ONS reports a significant increase in divorces amongst the over-50s in 2013, while in 2014 there was an increase in marriages between the over-65s. Although the average marriage age is 37.0 years for men and 34.6 years for women,…
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