Was your Taxotere prescription wrong? What NSW law says about incorrect docetaxel prescribing and the harm it causes
You went through chemotherapy. You trusted the oncology team to get the prescription right. Now you are living with damage — nerve pain that has not resolved, an immune system that crashed in ways that were not explained, or permanent hair loss from a drug you were not told carried that risk. And you are wondering whether what happened to you was inevitable, or whether someone made a mistake.
That question deserves a clear answer. Taxotere — the brand name for docetaxel — is one of the most potent and widely used chemotherapy agents in Australia. It is also one of the most protocol-dependent. The margin between a therapeutic dose and a toxic one is narrow. The prescribing requirements are specific. When those requirements are not followed, the harm that results is not a known risk of cancer treatment. It is the consequence of a prescribing failure.
What follows is an analysis of what correct Taxotere prescribing requires, where prescribing errors occur, and what the law in NSW says about the accountability that follows when those errors cause harm.
What Taxotere is and how it is used in Australia
Docetaxel — marketed under the brand name Taxotere — is a taxane chemotherapy agent derived from the European yew tree. It works by disrupting the normal function of microtubules, the structures cancer cells use to divide. By stabilising microtubules in an abnormal state, docetaxel prevents cell division and triggers cell death. For more background on how chemotherapy agents work in the body, Healthdirect Australia provides accessible clinical information.
In Australia, docetaxel is approved and used across a range of cancer types, including breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, prostate cancer, gastric cancer, and head and neck cancers. It is administered intravenously, typically in cycles of three weeks, and is almost always given in a hospital or day oncology setting under specialist supervision.
The drug carries a well-documented and serious toxicity profile. Severe neutropenia — a dangerous drop in white blood cells that leaves the patient vulnerable to life-threatening infection — occurs in a significant proportion of patients. Peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage causing pain, numbness, and loss of function in the hands and feet) is common and can be permanent. Fluid retention, severe fatigue, and hypersensitivity reactions are also documented. Permanent alopecia — hair loss that does not resolve after treatment ends — has been the subject of significant litigation internationally, including a major class action in the United States against the manufacturer, Sanofi.
Because of this toxicity profile, docetaxel prescribing is not discretionary. It is governed by specific protocols that define who can receive the drug, at what dose, with what pre-medication, and under what monitoring conditions. Deviation from those protocols is not a clinical judgment call. It is a prescribing error.
What it requires: eviQ — the authoritative Australian online resource for cancer treatment protocols, maintained by the Cancer Institute NSW — specifies that docetaxel prescribing requires confirmation of the approved indication, assessment of the patient’s Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status, baseline hepatic function testing (ALT, AST, bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase), baseline neutrophil count, and body surface area (BSA)-based dose calculation. Pre-medication with corticosteroids (typically dexamethasone) must be administered before each infusion to reduce hypersensitivity and fluid retention risk.
Why this matters: Failure to follow any of these steps before prescribing or administering docetaxel constitutes a departure from the accepted standard of care in Australian oncology practice, and that departure can form the basis of a negligence claim if harm results.
The standard of care — what oncologists and prescribing clinicians are required to do
The standard of care is the legal benchmark against which a clinician’s conduct is measured. In plain terms, it asks: what would a reasonably competent clinician in this specialty, with this patient, in these circumstances, have done? For docetaxel prescribing, that standard is not vague. It is codified in protocols, embedded in specialist training, and reinforced by institutional pharmacy and nursing checks.
A medical oncologist prescribing docetaxel is required to do the following before each cycle of treatment:
- Confirm the patient’s diagnosis and that docetaxel is an approved and appropriate treatment for that diagnosis at that stage of disease.
- Assess the patient’s ECOG performance status — a standardised scale from 0 (fully active) to 5 (dead) that measures functional capacity. Patients with an ECOG score of 3 or 4 are generally not candidates for docetaxel.
- Review current hepatic function results. Docetaxel is metabolised by the liver. Elevated liver enzymes or bilirubin significantly increase toxicity risk and require dose reduction or contraindicate treatment entirely.
- Review the current neutrophil count. A neutrophil count below 1.5 × 10⁹/L is a standard contraindication to proceeding with the next cycle.
- Calculate the dose based on the patient’s current body surface area, not a historical figure.
- Prescribe and confirm administration of the required pre-medication protocol.
- Document the clinical rationale for proceeding with treatment at the prescribed dose.
The informed consent obligation runs alongside these prescribing requirements. Under the High Court’s decision in Rogers v Whitaker (1992) 175 CLR 479, a clinician must disclose any material risk — meaning any risk that a reasonable person in the patient’s position would want to know about, or any risk the clinician knows this particular patient would want to know about. For docetaxel, that includes the risk of permanent peripheral neuropathy, the risk of permanent alopecia, and the risk of neutropenic sepsis. A clinician who fails to disclose these risks before prescribing has breached the consent standard independently of any prescribing error.1
Source: eviQ Cancer Treatments Online (Cancer Institute NSW). This diagram is educational only and does not constitute clinical guidance.
Where Taxotere prescribing breaks down — specific failure patterns
Docetaxel prescribing errors do not occur randomly. They cluster around specific decision points in the prescribing and administration process. Understanding where those failures occur — and why — is essential to assessing whether what happened in any individual case fell below the standard the law requires.
Prescribing at an incorrect dose
The standard docetaxel dose ranges from 60 to 100 mg/m² of body surface area, depending on the indication and the treatment protocol. A breast cancer protocol may specify 100 mg/m² as monotherapy, while a combination regimen for prostate cancer may specify 75 mg/m². These are not interchangeable. An oncologist who applies the wrong dose for the wrong protocol — or who uses an outdated body surface area calculation — exposes the patient to either under-treatment or, more dangerously, overdose.
Overdose at even a modest margin above the therapeutic range dramatically increases the risk of febrile neutropenia — a fever in a patient with critically low white blood cells, which is a medical emergency. She went home after her infusion feeling tired, which she expected. By day nine, her temperature was 39.4 degrees. Nobody had told her that was the window when neutropenic sepsis was most likely to occur, and nobody had given her written guidance on when to present to emergency.
Dose calculation errors are more common than the oncology system acknowledges. They occur at the prescribing stage, at the pharmacy verification stage, and at the point of administration. Each of those stages represents a check that should catch the error. When all three fail, the error reaches the patient.
Prescribing without adequate hepatic function assessment
Docetaxel is metabolised primarily by the liver. Elevated liver enzymes — specifically ALT, AST, or bilirubin above defined thresholds — require either dose reduction or contraindicate treatment entirely. The eviQ protocols are explicit: if bilirubin exceeds the upper limit of normal, or if ALT or AST exceeds 1.5 times the upper limit of normal in combination with alkaline phosphatase exceeding 2.5 times the upper limit of normal, docetaxel should not be administered at full dose.2
Prescribing without current liver function tests — or proceeding despite abnormal results without documented clinical justification — is a failure that the standard of care does not accommodate. The mechanism is straightforward: impaired hepatic clearance means the drug accumulates in the body at higher concentrations than intended, amplifying every toxicity on the drug’s profile.
Proceeding when neutrophil count has not recovered
Between cycles of docetaxel, the patient’s bone marrow must recover sufficiently to produce an adequate neutrophil count before the next cycle begins. The threshold is clear: an absolute neutrophil count below 1.5 × 10⁹/L is a standard contraindication to proceeding. An oncologist who reviews a blood result showing suppressed neutrophils and proceeds with the next infusion anyway has made a decision that the protocol does not permit.
The consequence is predictable. Administering docetaxel to a patient whose neutrophil count has not recovered compounds the bone marrow suppression from the previous cycle. The patient enters a period of profound neutropenia — sometimes called a nadir — with almost no immune defence. A minor infection becomes life-threatening. Hospitalisation, intravenous antibiotics, and in some cases intensive care follow. Some patients do not survive.
Prescribing for a patient whose performance status contraindicated treatment
The ECOG performance status scale is a standardised clinical tool that measures a patient’s functional capacity. A score of 0 means fully active. A score of 2 means ambulatory and capable of self-care but unable to work. A score of 3 means limited self-care and confined to bed or chair for more than 50% of waking hours. Docetaxel is generally not appropriate for patients with an ECOG score of 3 or 4 — their functional reserve is insufficient to tolerate the drug’s toxicity profile.
An oncologist who prescribes docetaxel to a patient with an ECOG score of 3, without documented clinical justification for departing from the standard recommendation, has made a prescribing decision that a reasonably competent oncologist would not have made. The harm that follows — accelerated functional decline, hospitalisation, or death — is not an unavoidable consequence of the cancer. It is a consequence of the prescribing decision.
Failure to disclose the risk of permanent alopecia
This failure pattern deserves separate treatment because it sits at the intersection of prescribing error and consent failure. Taxotere-induced permanent alopecia — hair loss that does not resolve after treatment ends — is a documented and recognised risk of docetaxel treatment. It is not the same as the temporary hair loss that most chemotherapy patients experience and expect to recover from. Permanent alopecia is a distinct, irreversible outcome.
The risk of permanent alopecia with docetaxel has been the subject of major litigation in the United States, where a federal multidistrict litigation found that Sanofi failed to adequately warn patients of this risk.3 In Australia, the obligation to disclose this risk falls on the prescribing oncologist under the informed consent standard established in Rogers v Whitaker. A patient who was told only that her hair would fall out and grow back — and who now has permanent alopecia — was not given the information she had a legal right to receive before consenting to treatment.
What the court found: The High Court confirmed that the informed consent standard in Australia requires disclosure of material risks — those a reasonable person in the patient’s position would want to know — and that failure to disclose such risks can constitute negligence independently of any technical error in the procedure itself.
Why this matters: For Taxotere patients, this principle means that a prescribing oncologist who failed to disclose the risk of permanent alopecia or permanent neuropathy before treatment may have breached the consent standard, regardless of whether the drug was otherwise correctly prescribed.
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has published national standards for medication safety and informed consent that apply directly to high-risk chemotherapy prescribing. Compliance with those standards is part of what the standard of care requires.
The legal framework in NSW
Medical negligence claims in NSW are governed primarily by the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW). That Act sets out the legal tests for breach, causation, and the defences available to clinicians. Understanding how those provisions apply to docetaxel prescribing errors is essential to assessing whether a claim is viable.
Who owes the duty of care
In the oncology context, the duty of care is owed by the prescribing medical oncologist, the treating hospital or day oncology unit, the pharmacist who dispenses and verifies the chemotherapy order, and the nursing staff who administer the infusion. Each of these parties occupies a distinct role in the prescribing and administration chain, and each carries a corresponding duty. When an error passes through multiple checks without being caught, the question of which party — or which combination of parties — breached their duty becomes a central issue in the claim.
Section 5O — the peer professional opinion defence
Section 5O of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) provides that a clinician does not breach their duty of care if they acted in a manner that was widely accepted by peer professional opinion as competent professional practice. This is sometimes called the “Bolam-style” defence in Australian law. But it has limits. Section 5O does not protect a clinician whose conduct departed from a protocol that the profession itself has codified — such as the eviQ prescribing protocols for docetaxel. A clinician cannot rely on peer professional opinion to justify ignoring a contraindication that the relevant specialist body’s own guidelines identify as absolute.4
Section 5D — causation
Section 5D of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) requires the plaintiff to establish that the breach was a necessary condition of the harm — the “but for” test. In docetaxel prescribing cases, this means establishing that but for the prescribing error, the specific harm would not have occurred. For a patient who developed severe neutropenic sepsis after the oncologist proceeded with a cycle despite a suppressed neutrophil count, the causal chain is direct: the decision to proceed caused the bone marrow suppression that caused the infection that caused the hospitalisation and its sequelae.
Causation becomes more complex where the harm — such as peripheral neuropathy — is a known risk of correctly prescribed docetaxel. In those cases, the question is whether the incorrect prescribing increased the risk of harm beyond what correctly prescribed treatment would have carried, or whether the harm would have occurred regardless. Expert oncology evidence is essential to this analysis.
For a full explanation of how negligence claims are structured and assessed in NSW, see Reframe Legal — Medical Negligence.
What happened: A patient suffered a ruptured aneurysm after a doctor failed to investigate symptoms that warranted further assessment. The question was whether the failure to investigate caused the harm, given that the aneurysm might have ruptured regardless.
What the court found: The High Court confirmed that causation requires proof on the balance of probabilities that the breach was a necessary condition of the harm — and that where proper investigation would have led to treatment that prevented the harm, causation is established.
Why this matters: In docetaxel cases, this principle supports the argument that where correct prescribing practice — such as withholding a cycle pending neutrophil recovery — would have prevented the specific harm that occurred, causation is established even if the underlying cancer created some background risk.
When incorrect Taxotere prescribing may amount to medical negligence
Not every adverse outcome from docetaxel treatment is negligence. The drug carries a serious and well-documented toxicity profile, and some patients will suffer significant harm even when the prescribing is entirely correct. The legal question is whether the harm resulted from a departure from the standard of care — not simply from the drug’s known effects.
If the oncologist proceeded despite a contraindicated neutrophil count
This is one of the clearest failure patterns in docetaxel prescribing. The protocol is explicit. The blood result is objective. An oncologist who reviews a neutrophil count below 1.5 × 10⁹/L and proceeds with the infusion has made a decision that the standard of care does not permit. If the patient then develops febrile neutropenia, requires hospitalisation, or suffers permanent harm to their immune function, the causal link between the prescribing decision and the harm is direct. This scenario engages both breach and causation without significant ambiguity.
If the dose was calculated incorrectly
A dose calculation error — whether from using an outdated body surface area, applying the wrong protocol dose, or a transcription error — is a prescribing failure. If the error resulted in an overdose that caused harm beyond what correctly dosed treatment would have caused, the prescribing oncologist and the pharmacy verification system both carry potential liability. The harm must be quantified against what correctly dosed treatment would have produced — expert oncology evidence will address this directly.
If the patient’s hepatic function contraindicated treatment at the prescribed dose
Where liver function tests showed results above the thresholds specified in the eviQ protocols, and the oncologist proceeded without dose reduction or documented clinical justification, the prescribing decision departed from the accepted standard. The harm — amplified toxicity from impaired drug clearance — flows directly from that departure. This scenario is particularly significant where the patient’s liver function results were available in the medical record and the oncologist either did not review them or reviewed them and proceeded without adjustment.
If the patient was not told about the risk of permanent alopecia before consenting
Under Rogers v Whitaker, the failure to disclose a material risk before treatment constitutes a breach of the consent standard. Permanent alopecia is a material risk of docetaxel treatment — it is irreversible, it affects appearance and identity, and a reasonable person in the patient’s position would want to know about it before deciding whether to proceed. An oncologist who described hair loss as temporary, or who did not mention permanent alopecia at all, failed to meet the disclosure standard. The patient’s loss of the opportunity to make an informed decision — including potentially choosing a different treatment regimen — is itself a compensable harm.
The three elements of negligence applied to Taxotere prescribing
For a medical negligence claim to succeed, three elements must all be established: duty of care, breach of that duty, and causation of harm. In docetaxel prescribing cases, each element has a specific character that is worth understanding before examining your own situation.
Peripheral neuropathy developing during a correctly prescribed and correctly dosed course of docetaxel — this is a known and disclosed risk of the drug even when all protocols are followed.
Severe peripheral neuropathy or neutropenic sepsis occurring after the oncologist proceeded with a cycle despite a neutrophil count below the protocol threshold — harm that correct prescribing would have prevented or significantly reduced.
This is a general educational framework only. Each case depends on its individual facts and circumstances.
The long-term and permanent harm from incorrect Taxotere prescribing
The harm from a docetaxel prescribing error does not resolve when the treatment ends. For many patients, the damage is permanent — and it compounds over time in ways that are not always visible in the immediate aftermath of treatment.
Peripheral neuropathy
Peripheral neuropathy — nerve damage causing pain, numbness, tingling, and loss of fine motor function in the hands and feet — is the most common long-term harm from docetaxel. When correctly prescribed, neuropathy occurs in a proportion of patients and may partially resolve after treatment ends. When incorrectly prescribed — at too high a dose, or continued beyond the point where neuropathy symptoms should have triggered dose reduction or cessation — the damage is more severe and less likely to resolve.
Permanent neuropathy affects the ability to work, to perform daily tasks, to drive, and to maintain independence. For patients who worked in roles requiring fine motor skill or prolonged standing, the occupational consequences are severe. The financial loss — in lost income, retraining costs, and ongoing treatment — accumulates over years.
Neutropenic sepsis and its sequelae
Febrile neutropenia — fever in a patient with critically suppressed white blood cells — is a medical emergency. Patients who develop neutropenic sepsis as a result of incorrect docetaxel prescribing face hospitalisation, intravenous antibiotics, and in severe cases, intensive care admission. Some develop organ damage. Some die. Those who survive may carry lasting immune dysfunction, reduced tolerance for further cancer treatment, and significant psychological harm.
Post-traumatic stress disorder following a life-threatening medical event is well documented. A patient who nearly died from neutropenic sepsis — who was not warned this was a risk, and who later learned the prescribing decision that caused it was avoidable — carries a psychological burden that is distinct from the anxiety of cancer itself.
Permanent alopecia
Permanent alopecia — hair loss that does not resolve after docetaxel treatment ends — affects a subset of patients. The psychological impact is significant and lasting. Hair loss that was expected to be temporary, and that a patient accepted on that basis, becomes a permanent alteration to appearance and identity. For patients who were not told this was a possible outcome, the harm includes both the physical reality of permanent alopecia and the loss of the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to accept that risk.
-
D0Infusion day — prescribing error occurs
Incorrect dose administered, contraindicated neutrophil count ignored, or hepatic function not reviewed. The patient feels the expected fatigue and goes home. -
D7Nadir window begins — days 7–14
White blood cell count reaches its lowest point. For a patient whose count was already suppressed at the time of infusion, this nadir is deeper and more dangerous. Fever, chills, and infection risk escalate sharply. -
D10Febrile neutropenia — emergency presentation
Temperature exceeds 38°C in a neutropenic patient. Emergency department admission. Intravenous antibiotics. Possible ICU escalation. The cancer treatment that was meant to help has become the immediate threat to life. -
Wk 6Peripheral neuropathy onset or escalation
Numbness and tingling in hands and feet. For a patient who received an overdose, or who continued treatment past the point where neuropathy should have triggered dose reduction, the nerve damage is more severe than it would otherwise have been. -
Mo 6Treatment ends — harm assessment begins
Hair has not regrown. Neuropathy has not resolved. Functional capacity is reduced. The patient begins to understand that what they are living with is not temporary. The question of whether it was avoidable begins to form. -
Yr 2+Permanent harm — compounding consequences
Permanent neuropathy limits work capacity and daily function. Permanent alopecia affects identity and psychological wellbeing. Financial losses accumulate. The harm from the prescribing error continues to compound long after the cancer treatment has ended.
This timeline is illustrative of common harm progression patterns. Individual presentations vary. This is not clinical advice.
What compensation covers in NSW
Where a medical negligence claim succeeds, compensation in NSW covers two broad categories of loss: general damages and special damages.
General damages compensate for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and loss of amenities. Under section 16 of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), non-economic loss is only compensable if the severity of the harm is at least 15% of the most extreme case. For patients with permanent peripheral neuropathy, permanent alopecia, or the sequelae of neutropenic sepsis, this threshold is often met. The maximum award for non-economic loss is indexed annually.
Special damages cover past and future medical expenses, lost income (past and future), the cost of paid care and assistance, and the cost of home modifications where required. For a patient with permanent neuropathy who can no longer work in their previous occupation, the future economic loss component of a claim can be substantial — it is calculated by reference to the patient’s pre-injury earnings, their remaining working life, and the degree of functional impairment.
The limitation period under the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) is generally three years from the date the cause of action is discoverable — meaning the date the person knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that they had suffered harm that might have been caused by a breach of duty. For patients who only recently learned that their permanent alopecia or neuropathy was linked to a prescribing error, the limitation period may run from the date of that discovery, not the date of the infusion. Time limits are strict, and delay in seeking legal examination of the facts can extinguish a valid claim.
| Severity of harm | Indicative range (NSW) | Key factors |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate injury with recovery | $50,000–$150,000 | Duration of pain, treatment required, time off work |
| Serious injury with lasting effects | $150,000–$500,000 | Permanent impairment, ongoing treatment, care needs |
| Severe or life-changing injury | $500,000–$2,000,000+ | Catastrophic loss of function, lifetime care, lost earnings |
These figures are general reference ranges only. Each case turns on its own evidence — medical records, expert clinical opinion, and economic reports that quantify the actual loss.
How to think about your own situation
The questions below are not a legal test. They are prompts to help you think clearly about whether your experience may warrant further examination of the facts.
These questions are not a legal test. But the pattern they reveal — when several of them point in the same direction — is often the starting point for a proper examination of whether the standard of care was met. For a detailed explanation of how that examination works in NSW, see Reframe Legal — How Medical Negligence Claims Work in NSW.
Uncertainty is normal — and it is not evidence that nothing went wrong
Most people in this situation feel uncertain. They went through cancer treatment. The oncology team was trying to help them. The drug was prescribed by a specialist. And now they are living with harm that may or may not have been avoidable — and they do not know how to tell the difference.
That uncertainty is rational. It is not evidence that nothing went wrong. The clinical picture is genuinely complex, and the line between an unavoidable consequence of cancer treatment and a consequence of a prescribing error is not always visible without examining the medical records against the protocol requirements.
What the law requires is an objective assessment. The standard of care is not measured by what the oncologist intended, or by how hard they were working, or by how much they cared about the patient’s outcome. It is measured by what a reasonably competent oncologist in the same circumstances would have done — and whether the prescribing decisions made in this case met that benchmark.
Medical records tell a clearer story than memory. The blood results from the day before each infusion are in the record. The dose prescribed is in the record. The consent documentation — or its absence — is in the record. The question of whether the standard of care was met is answered by examining those records against the protocol requirements, with the assistance of expert oncology opinion.
For patients who were not told about the risk of permanent alopecia, the consent question is addressed separately from the prescribing question — and both are worth examining. See Reframe Legal — Informed Consent and Medical Negligence for a detailed analysis of how the consent standard applies in NSW.
If you have concerns about the conduct of the prescribing oncologist as a registered practitioner, AHPRA — Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency is the body responsible for investigating complaints about registered health practitioners in Australia. A complaint to AHPRA and a civil negligence claim are separate processes and can proceed independently.
About Dr Rosemary Listing
Dr Rosemary Listing is a lawyer with a PhD focused on medical negligence. Her legal practice concentrates on cases where clinical care in NSW failed to meet the standard the law and the profession require.
Cases involving incorrect Taxotere prescribing sit at a demanding intersection of oncology protocol, pharmaceutical regulation, and informed consent law. The clinical standard for docetaxel prescribing is codified and specific — but establishing whether a departure from that standard caused the harm a patient is living with requires both an understanding of how the drug works in the body and a precise application of the causation principles that NSW courts apply. That intersection is not straightforward without training in both disciplines.
The people who seek a legal examination of their records after cancer treatment are not looking to blame anyone. They want to understand what happened and whether it could have been different. Many waited a long time before seeking any kind of examination of the facts — often because they doubted themselves, or because those around them told them to be grateful they survived, or because the oncology team’s evident care made it hard to ask whether something had gone wrong.
Dr Listing examines medical records alongside expert clinical opinion and applies the legal standard — not to assign blame, but to give people an honest answer about whether what happened to them met the benchmark the profession sets for itself. That answer, whatever it is, is what most people are actually seeking.
References
- Rogers v Whitaker (1992) 175 CLR 479 (High Court of Australia) — establishing the informed consent standard in Australian medical negligence law.
- Cancer Institute NSW, eviQ Cancer Treatments Online — Docetaxel prescribing protocols, including hepatic function thresholds and contraindications. Available at: https://www.eviq.org.au/
- In re: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2740 (E.D. La.) — United States federal multidistrict litigation concerning Sanofi’s failure to warn of permanent alopecia risk associated with docetaxel.
- Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), ss 5O, 5D — peer professional opinion defence and causation standard.
- Rosenberg v Percival (2001) 205 CLR 434 (High Court of Australia) — confirming the scope of the informed consent obligation and the materiality test for risk disclosure.
- Naxakis v Western General Hospital (1999) 197 CLR 269 (High Court of Australia) — causation in medical negligence; the “but for” test and its application where proper investigation or treatment would have prevented harm.
- Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care — National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards, Standard 4: Medication Safety. Available at: https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/
- Limitation Act 1969 (NSW), s 14 — three-year limitation period running from the date the cause of action is discoverable.
- Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), s 16 — threshold for non-economic loss (15% of most extreme case) and indexed maximum award.
- Healthdirect Australia — Chemotherapy information. Available at: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/
This article contains general legal information only. It does not constitute legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer–client relationship. The law discussed applies to New South Wales, Australia. Each person’s circumstances differ. Time limits apply to legal claims in NSW, and these limits may affect your position. You should seek independent legal advice about your specific situation.