> ### CIVIL PROCEDURE PRE-ACTION PROTOCOLS

> ### CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE PROTOCOL

> ### EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

> 1. | The Clinical Disputes Forum is a multi-disciplinary body which was formed in 1997, as a result of Lord Woolf’s ‘Access to Justice’ inquiry. One of the aims of the Forum is to find less adversarial and more cost-effective ways of resolving disputes about healthcare and medical treatment. The names and addresses of the Chairman and Secretary of the Forum can be found at Annex E.
> 2. | This protocol is the Forum’s first major initiative. It has been drawn up care-fully, including extensive consultations with most of the key stakeholders in the medico-legal system.
> 3. | The protocol – encourages a climate of openness when something has ‘gone wrong’ with a patient’s treatment or the patient is dissatisfied with that treat-ment and/or the outcome. This reflects the new and developing requirements for clinical governance within healthcare; provides general guidance on how this more open culture might be achieved when disputes arise; recommends a timed sequence of steps for patients and healthcare providers, and their advisers, to follow when a dispute arises. This should facilitate and speed up exchanging relevant information and increase the prospects that disputes can be resolved without resort to legal action.
> 4. | This protocol has been prepared by a working party of the Clinical Disputes Forum. It has the support of the Lord Chancellor’s Department, the Depart-ment of Health and NHS Executive, the Law Society, the Legal Aid Board and many other key organisations.

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