Cattanach v Melchior and Implications for Health Information Managers.

The recent High Court ruling upholding a prior decision to allow a mother to sue for the cost of rearing a child after having had a failed sterilisation has understandably attracted great controversy (Cattanach v Melchior [2003]). The implications of this decision on what can now be claimed for through medical litigation are significant, and lawyers and doctors will extract from it lessons for their respective professions. The case also has some important implications for health information managers, whose role includes the release of clinical information.