I spoke last week of how the people down at the hospital had got all their excuses well rehearsed. But I don’t want it thought that I have it in for the hospitals. We all know they do a great job most of the time. It’s just the way they behave when things go wrong that leaves something to be desired. But in that, they are far from unique.

This sort of thing happens with all large corporate bodies nowadays: public, private or whatever. They all seem to regard the public as being Thick with a capital ‘T’. We do nowadays read in the papers a lot about how people in this country are apparently becoming more and more litigation friendly and zipping off to court at the drop of a hat, but I have to say that in my experience I see very little of this. In fact, the only thing that surprises me is that there isn’t a lot more litigation around, and this business of the hospital is just a good example of that.

Time and time again I hear people absolutely seething with anger at being treated like idiots and looked down on by people who quite clearly resent the fact that anybody has asked them any sort of pertinent question. It upsets their ordered little lives being required and expected to explain things and, perish the thought, perhaps even justify themselves every now and again. Lots of these cases, like that of the lady to whom I referred, have a common characteristic, which is that from a legal point of view there’s not a lot you can do about it unless the complaint is worth something in monetary terms. In our system you cannot sue for an apology, but this is all most people want.

It’s often seemed to me that one of the best reforms of the law we could make would be to enable people in these bureaucracies to give apologies and explanations without having to run the fear of being sued as a result. At the end of the day, money is all that they’re interested in and if they had that bit of security, that they wouldn’t have to necessarily shell out, then maybe that might make them do the decent thing. Then again, maybe I’m just too much the optimist

This is the sort of thing Wilsons grapple with on behalf of our clients. Seven days a week!

John Wilson