A patient makes a claim against an anaesthetist member following intra-operative accidental awareness, which she alleged resulted in psychiatric injury.

An elderly patient dies after his prescription goes uncollected. Who is at fault – the GP or the patient’s care home? Medical Protection assisted a member at the resulting inquest.

Dr T’s deskilling in resuscitation leads to a patient death and a claim.

This psychiatric claim underlines the perils of treating those close to you.

Mr U has a hernia repair and is later diagnosed with lung cancer. He makes a claim against two surgeons involved, alleging it should have been identified sooner.

Consent and record-keeping are at the heart of this claim, which sees a patient left paraplegic following an epidural.

Good medical records – whether electronic or handwritten – are essential for the continuity of care of your patients. Adequate medical records enable you or somebody else to reconstruct the essential parts of each patient contact without reference to memory. They should therefore be comprehensive enough to allow a colleague to carry on where you left off.

Patients who are kept informed about their condition and are involved in deciding on the appropriate treatment are more likely to comply with the treatment you suggest, and less likely to complain if things go wrong.

The medical consultation is a challenge to both doctor and patient, whether in the community or in hospital. The need for more detailed discussions with patients, along with their increasing autonomy and right to make choices in relation to their clinical care and treatment, has affected the traditional role of the doctor-patient relationship. This has made maintaining appropriate professional boundaries in the doctor-patient consultation more challenging, however, the guidance from national and regulatory bodies is clear that it is always the health professional's responsibility to do so.