Healthcare

Legislation providing for the mandatory open disclosure of serious patient safety incidents is to be commenced in the coming days. The Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023 was signed into law by the President last year, and a number of preparatory steps required to enab

The Mental Health Bill 2024, which will replace the existing Mental Health Acts 2001-2022, has been published. The lengthy bill now has 202 sections — up from the 197 sections announced last week due to "formatting/drafting changes made during the quality assurance process".

Major reforms to mental health legislation have been approved by ministers. The Mental Health Bill, to be published next week, will replace the existing Mental Health Acts 2001–2022 with the aim of providing a modern legal framework that will protect the rights of people with mental health dif

A medical negligence claim concerning a 12-year-old girl who suffered brain damage at birth has been settled for just under £21 million, making it one of the largest-ever settlements of its kind in Northern Ireland. Eoin Kearney of Derry-based Brendan Kearney & Co Solicitors, a member of A

Business law firm Mason Hayes & Curran has launched a new analysis of trends and regulatory shifts in the EU's digital health sector over the past six months. The Mid-Year Digital Health Guide focuses on critical developments that are shaping digital health in 2024 and lays the groundwork for wh

Northern Ireland is to make the biggest changes to its its public health legislative framework in nearly six decades. The Department of Health has launched a consultation asking for views on new health protection measures being implemented through a Public Health Bill to replace the current Public H

Bríd O’Flaherty BL has been appointed to chair the non-statutory inquiry into the historical licensing and use of the anti-epileptic drug sodium valproate (Epilim) in women of child-bearing potential in the State. While sodium valproate is an effective and essential treatment for some p

The EU AI Act is poised to be a catalyst for innovation in medtech, a new Mason Hayes & Curran survey suggests. The business law firm polled close to 200 professionals from the medtech sector at its recent webinar titled "What the AI Act Means for Medical Devices". The findings come as the new r

Marguerite Kehoe BL reviews recent case law highlighting the systemic challenges face by the CFA in securing an adequate number of special care beds for minors requiring assistance. The inability of the Child and Family Agency (CFA) to provide sufficient special care beds has been the subject of sev

Free hospital car parking in Northern Ireland has to be delayed in part due to legal challenges affecting plans to use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology, health minister Robin Swann has said. The Hospital Parking Charges Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, which bans the imposition of pa

Mark Connaughton SC has been appointed as the independent chair of the new Paediatric Spinal Taskforce. The government has established the multi-stakeholder taskforce in a bid to cut waiting times for children who need spinal surgery.

The family of a woman who died from breast cancer after a delayed diagnosis have received a substantial settlement and a public apology from the HSE. Lynn Rocke passed away of metastatic breast carcinoma on 16 March 2020, having been diagnosed in March 2018.

Carson McDowell associate Genevieve Brindley highlights a UK judgment on psychiatric illness negligently caused to 'secondary victims' and considers the possible implications in Ireland. In a recent decision relating to three cases — Paul v Wolverhamptom NHS Trust, Polmear and another v R

Doctors and patients are suffering mental harm as a result of Ireland's slow and expensive litigation process, the Medical Protection Society (MPS) has said. A new MPS report states that a clinical negligence claim in Ireland takes an average of 1,462 days to resolve, 14 per cent longer than in Sout

The Court of Appeal has upheld the dismissal of a clinical negligence claim in circumstances where no expert report had been obtained by the plaintiff’s solicitors almost eight years after the proceedings had issued. Delivering judgment for the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Seamus Noonan denounc