Will criminal prosecutions follow the health sector response to the coronavirus crisis?

Samuel Lindsay and Duncan Astill discuss whether healthcare professionals should be worried about criminal prosecutions following the sector’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Practitioners reading the industry press could be forgiven for thinking that COVID-19 criminal prosecutions are unavoidable. However, such predictions do not appear well founded.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on health and care workers is unprecedented in our time. Services under strain before the crisis must now operate under even greater pressure and providers and individual clinicians are having to make resourcing decisions with significant consequences.

Those having to make such decisions will no doubt be concerned about legal ramifications if their actions prove to have been less than optimal in hindsight. Inquiries and investigations into how the crisis was handled are inevitable, as well as legal challenges that follow allegations of negligent care and breaches of legal rights.

Executives and practitioners reading the industry press could also be forgiven for thinking that COVID-19 criminal prosecutions are also unavoidable. However, such predictions do not appear well founded.

Read the full article on The Journal of mHealth

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