The Danish Patient Compensation (previously named Danish Patient Compensation Association) was founded to improve patients ability to claim compensation if they unexpectedly should receive an injury while being treated at the national hospitals.
Prior to the founding of the Patient Compensation Association 1992, patients had to bring a claim before a judge in court to claim compensation for an injury.
At that time, patients were only entitled to compensation if they could prove that a healthcare professional had made a mistake. However that was very difficult to prove.
Therefore the politicians decided to improve the patients ability to claim compensation. Denmark was to have a publicly-funded compensation scheme based on the scheme found in Sweden.
Patients were no longer required to prove that a mistake had occured in order to claim compensation. Now it simply had to be proven that an injury most likely was due to the healthcare treatment. Nor was the patient required to conduct the case any longer. Furthermore the patients were no longer required to lead their cases as an association was established to ensure the receival of entitled compensation.
Therefore the Patient Compensation Act was passed and the Patient Compensation Association was founded to make decisions in compliance with the Act.
The introduction of the Patient Compensation Act
The Patient Compensation Act became effective in 1992 and was accompanied by the Act on Compensation for Medicine-related injuries in 1996.
Since that time, the area covered by the law has been expanded to include almost all areas and functions of the public and private health service. Today both laws are collected in the Danish Act on the Right to Complain and Receive Compensation within the Health Services.
The scheme, whereby it is not necessary to prove that doctors or other healthcare professionals have made a mistake in order to receive compensation, is only found in the Scandinavic countries.