Duty of care, negligence and assumption of responsibility

The Supreme Court is now in recess for the summer. When it reconvenes for the Michaelmas term in October, public bodies will be keenly awaiting the judgments in Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust and CN & GN v Poole BC. The Darnley case, heard in June, will decide whether non-clinically trained reception staff at an A&E department owed a duty of care to provide a prospective patient with accurate information regarding waiting times. The CN case, heard in July, will decide whether a local authority owes a duty of care when exercising its child protection functions in respect of a child not in its care. For obvious reasons, both judgments will have significant implications for the public sector.

In advance of these crucial decisions, we consider some other important recent cases in which the court has been required to determine the nature and scope of the common law duty of care, an issue which continues to occupy the courts… READ FULL ARTICLE