Mary Newnham considers Hughes v Rattan [2021 EWHC 2032 (QB), an important decision for the dental sector on the issue of legal responsibility of practice owners providing NHS dentistry services via associate dentists, but of interest to all clinical negligence practitioners with its guidance on non-delegable duties and vicarious liability.

Ted Cunningham discusses this case concerning a dental practice’s owner’s non-delegable duty, where judgment was handed down in April by His Honour Judge Harrison, sitting at Cardiff County Court. The judgment can be accessed here, on the website of the solicitors for the claimant. In short, the Learned Judge held that Mr Croad, a former dentist who had been retired for 20 years and who had sold his practice many years before the litigation commenced, owed a non-delegable duty of care to the Claimant at the material time.

In this post, Henry King discusses the case of Hopkins (A Child) v Akramy [2020] EWHC 3445 (QB), in which the court held that an NHS Primary Care Trust did not owe a non-delegable duty of care to protect NHS patients from harm, including harm from the negligent provision of primary medical services by a third party. This case provides useful insight into the court's considerations in a situation where the alleged negligence is by a third party with whom the NHS has contracted to provide healthcare services.