Doctors didn’t breach duty of care by not telling woman her father had Huntington’s disease

A woman who sued three NHS trusts for negligence for not telling her while she was pregnant that her father had Huntington’s disease has lost her case in the High Court.1

The woman, referred to as ABC, claimed that she would have undergone a termination had doctors caring for her father, anonymised as XX, told her that he had the disease and that she had a 50% chance of inheriting the gene.

But Mrs Justice Yip ruled that two of the trusts involved in her father’s care had no duty of care to her, a third party. While South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, where she was participating in family therapy, had a duty of care, doctors there had not breached the duty, the judge …