Cancer is a hot topic and is likely to remain as such for the foreseeable future, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in a setback of previous advances and seen cancer as a renewed focus of attention in the media. Even without the impact of COVID-19, it is a sad fact that cancer remains the most common cause of avoidable death for both men and women in England and Wales according to ONS statistics, as it has for many years. It is also perhaps self-evident that the economic cost of cancer diagnoses is massive. And yet cancer also has an unquantifiable emotional and psychological reach.
With the continued technological advances of the internet and social media, and the increased propensity (quite properly) for patients to take control of their health and treatment, rather than deferring unquestioningly to the medical profession, it is perhaps not surprising that legal claims arising out of the misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of cancer subtypes continue to take up a considerable amount of legal time. Yet, even since the first edition of A Practical Guide to Claims Arising from Delays in Diagnosing Cancer was published in 2018, sources of information to help practitioners through the practicalities of taking on and managing these complex cases remain sparse.
This second edition will equip you with the tools to deconstruct and manage these legally and often factually complex and emotive claims through to trial. It will also provide a practical and easy to digest guide for the legal practitioner through from the history underlying this area of law and the science underpinning it, through the initial review of a claim to the selection of experts, and considering how to establish or indeed challenge breach of duty and causation as well as the often overlooked complexities of framing a claim for the terminally ill client. Against that background, this edition updates and reviews changes in the social, economic and political background to these claims since 2018, updates and analyses the case law pertinent to such claims, and includes a new chapter to consider how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect the investigation of such claims.
