HEALTH CARE LIABILITY ACT 2001 - SECT 3
Objects of Act
HEALTH CARE LIABILITY ACT 2001 - SECT 3
Objects of Act
3 Objects of Act
(1) The objects of this Act are as follows--
(a) to facilitate access to fair
and sustainable compensation for persons who sustain severe injuries from the
provision of health care,
(b) to keep the costs of medical indemnity premiums
sustainable, in particular by limiting the amount of compensation payable for
non-economic loss in cases of relatively minor injury, while preserving
principles of full compensation for those with severe injuries involving
ongoing impairment and disabilities,
(c) to promote the reasonable
distribution across the medical indemnity industry of the costs of
compensation for persons who sustain severe injuries from the provision of
health care,
(d) to facilitate the effective contribution by medical
indemnity providers to risk management and quality improvement activities in
the health care sector,
(e) to enable the medical profession and the
community to be better informed as to the costs of compensation for, and
developing trends in, personal injury claims arising from the provision of
health care.
(2) In the application and administration of this Act and the
regulations, it must be recognised--
(a) that medical indemnity providers have
a role in keeping the cost of premiums within reasonable bounds by having in
place appropriate standards in relation to risk management and claims handling
procedures, and
(b) that the law (both the enacted law and the common law)
relating to the assessment of damages of the kind to which Part 2 applies
should be interpreted and applied in a way that acknowledges the clear
legislative intention to restrict the level of compensation for
non-economic loss.
(3) In the interpretation of a provision of this Act and
the regulations, a construction that would promote the objects of this Act or
the provision is to be preferred to a construction that would not promote
those objects. This subsection does not limit the generality of section 33 of
the Interpretation Act 1987 .
