Posted: 28/04/2014
AvMA is a charity focused on issues of patient safety and justice, originally established in 1982. Since its inception, AvMA has provided advice and support to over 100,000 people affected by medical accidents, and succeeded in bringing about massive changes to the way that the legal system deals with clinical negligence as well as in moving patient safety higher up the agenda in the UK.
The legal reforms of Lord Woolf and the creation of agencies such as the National Patient Safety Agency and Commission for Health Audit and Inspection followed years of AvMA raising these issues and campaigning. AvMA is also responsible for making clinical negligence a specialism within legal practice, and continues to accredit solicitors for its specialist panel, promoting good practice through comprehensive services to claimant solicitors.
Membership of the specialist clinical negligence solicitors panel is via a detailed application and assessment procedure. In order to qualify, individuals need to demonstrate, amongst other things, extensive experience in this area of a variety of cases with hands on case management (rather than delegation), a claimant focused approach, a good track record of results and that an individual keeps up to date with issues and developments in this area. Reaccreditation is required on a regular basis.
In the last financial year, Guy Forster from Penningtons Manches’ Cambridge office has been appointed to the panel as a new member while Philippa Luscombe (Godalming and London), Alison Appelboam-Meadows (Basingstoke) and John Kyriacou (London) have all been reaccredited.
Commenting on these successes, Philippa Luscombe, partner in the team, said: “We have a long-standing relationship with AvMA and see, first hand, the excellent work that it does both in providing support to individuals and in tireless campaigning for patient safety. This organisation has long felt it important that patients needing legal advice should deal only with specialist clinical negligence solicitors – who are focused on working for claimants. Its panel of solicitors is a widely recognised benchmark and we are delighted that all our team partners, as well as other senior members of the team, are recognised in this way.”
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