DOCTORS AND NHS FACE AI NEGLIGENCE LIABILITY, REPORT WARNS

Doctors and the NHS could face clinical negligence lawsuits over mistakes made by artificial intelligence tools used to diagnose patients and recommend treatment. Under current law, medics and the health service can be held liable for patient harm or death even when AI systems produced the errors that caused the outcome. The Medical Protection Society, which represents doctors facing allegations of wrongdoing, has published a report warning that clinicians risk becoming what it calls a "liability sink" for AI failures. The organisation is calling on ministers to overhaul the legal framework before the problem grows.

The NHS currently uses AI across a range of functions, including analysing scans and X-rays, generating summaries of clinical conversations, and drafting patient letters. The Medical Protection Society cited two specific scenarios in its report: an AI system failing to identify a tumour on a chest X-ray, leading to a patient's death through lack of treatment; and an AI incorrectly recommending an increased dose of the blood thinner warfarin, causing severe bleeding requiring surgery. Dr Sarah Townley, deputy medical director at the Medical Protection Society, said the gap between law and technology felt "less like a step and more like a widening gulf." The organisation stated that under the existing product liability framework, clinicians faced a real risk of being held wholly liable in such cases.

The Medical Protection Society wants the government to reclassify AI tools and systems as products, bringing them within the scope of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. Such a reclassification would shift or distribute liability away from individual clinicians when AI systems cause harm. The report represents a formal call for legislative change directed at ministers responsible for health and technology policy. No government response to the recommendations was included in the source material.