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Doctors and NHS could be sued for mistakes made by AI tools, report warns
(www.medicalprotection.org)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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Not really. Workers are left taking the blame for forced implementation from the executive level. They save the costs and work staff harder... But when it fucks up then the workers can take the blame. Responsibility for this needs to sit higher up with those who forced faulty tools on everyone. AI is being forced into the NHS against all protests and objections.
Then they have an obligation to fight back. Or they can lose their job because they blindly followed AI.
And resistance can only be collective. Another reason unionisation is as important as it's ever been.
I thought the NHS had a pretty good union, no?
It is but creeping privatisation may change that, as does legislation becoming more hostile to unionisation since the 1980s.
The broader point is that individuals can try all they want to preserve their privacy, but then friends, family and organisations spy on them, often unwittingly, eg when we share with them calendar events or email messages. The only way forward is collective resistance, building alliances and influencing public policy. But it's always been like that with systemic issues.
Does the "following orders" defense work sometimes?
Almost always
Especially if you have archived that email saying ftfu and AI. I've been hoarding these since this idiocy started.
Only when standards are not at their highest? If so, that wouldn't look good.
Any doctor using an LLM or ML algorithm for anything but analysing huge quantities of data deserves to be lambasted
Workers are left taking the blame for forced implementation from the executive level.
Are the individual workers being sued, or is the hospital?
Doctors are not like developers. The heads of organizations treat them differently, because their job prospects are better. If they say no, it's a no.
Ref: Trying to get doctors in hospital systems to use life-saving notifications for years.
I can understand this to some degree, but I largely disagree.
AI is a tool. The user of the tool should be the one that carries responsibility. I don't have the stats, but I imagine that most jobs that relied on hand tools suffered more injury when power tools were introduced, but again, it's up to the person using the tool to use it responsibly.
Granted, thats not a perfect analogy because AI definitely doesn't present the same marked improvements as power tools, but the responsibility of the user doesn't change.
The power tools are faulty, and they're being forced to use them. You're assuming the people using the AI have the power to reject what the AI says. I'm not sure that's true.
Now that they're personally liable for what it outputs, they definitely can. Your boss can't force you to break the law.
I love how the AI booster narrative for using it shifted so quickly from "buh it it will make medicine better!" to "it's the doctor's fault when it fails!"
Or maybe that's the point. Heap unwarranted praise at the feet of the AI corpos, shift all externalities and blame onto the victims.
Being liable for medical malpractice and breaking the law are almost completely mutually exclusive.
It's almost always a civil suit, often between insurance companies.
Well, if you want to lose your job, you're right!
Everyone wants to use AI to think for them. Nobody wants to be responsible for the results.
If a doctor relies on AI without verifying or understanding the answer, he deserves all the consequences that will fall on his head.
Good. But I would like to see it go further and have a provision that allows the doctor to pass that blame on to the place they work if using that AI is being forced on them.
Additionally, if an AI is advertised as 'safe for medical guidance', that should open that AI company to lawsuits.
As they should!
Ai gave the wrong answer and the patient dies - your fault.
You didnt trust ai, the patient dies - also your fault.
This is what AI companies are of course pushing for. They want all the profits but none of the responsibility.
Some tools are reliable, dependable and determinist and some are not, professionals and specialists using tools must know the effects and their attributes.
Really? Who is responsible for deciding the course of treatment? Is it the doctors or the computers?
Because it's an undergraduate student at best.
Well, yeah, if a surgeon decided that using a chainsaw in surgery was a good idea and the hospital went ahead with it, it's not up to the chainsaw maker to pay compensation after a patient was eviscerated on the operating table.
AI is stupidly dangerous for any life critical task that requires precision and correctness.
Unless the chainsaw manufacturer explicitly said "surgery grade chainsaw, perfect for operations, better than a scalpel, surgery tool of the future"
Which is what medical AI companies say all the time. Sue the Dr, sue the hospital, but most of all sue medical AI companies until they're bankrupt and banned forever.