The necessity of providing healthcare to citizens is one of the basic principles of every state, regulated by provisions of national, EU or international law and comple-mented by soft law. Civilisational changes and technological advancement make it possible to develop new healthcare tools and services (i.a. telemonitoring, telecon-sulting, telerehabilitation and electronic medical documentation). The COVID-19 pandemic greatly emphasised the need to provide such services. The wide use of e-health, however, which may be a remedy for numerous problems that the health-care sector is wrestling with, requires securing the rights of those who are not digitally included, especially the elderly. The prevalence of various degrees of digital exclusion, not only among the elderly, makes these issues socially significant and they should be solved by law. The purpose of the article is an initial analysis of the validity of developing e-health services in the ageing society in Poland and a presentation of proposals for adjusting legal solutions as regards the use of digital tools in healthcare to the changing reality.

The paper discusses the procedure before the guardianship court regarding granting so-called surrogate approval of providing a healthcare service, particularly vaccination against COVID-19, to persons who are unable to make a conscious decision in this regard for objective reasons – health or age. The currently applicable provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Act on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Professions were analysed. Due to lack of any separate procedural regulation of procedure in this regard, special attention was paid to the right court representation of the person whom the approval concerns and to the issue of gathering and assessing evidence. The authors’ goal was in particular to evaluate legal loopholes noticed in practice and to indicate possible practical and procedural solutions, which is specifically essential in the current epidemiological situation, as nowadays these types of proceedings constitute a significant percentage of cases examined by courts.

Evidencing in medical trials for damages is difficult, and it requires not only knowledge in the field of law, but also in the field of medicine. The main impediment to fluent proceeding in medical matters which requires to be strongly emphasised is a vast difficulty for courts in taking evidence by an expert within reasonable time. Such evidence is generally necessary in every case because there is a necessity to learn medical facts from the perspective of specialist knowledge (Article 278 § 1 of CPC). The problematic nature of damages for so called medical errors has gained more and ore significance, both because of the growing number of claims and the damages paid in relation thereto and the rising costs of insurance against those events incurred by healthcare centers. In such legal circumstances, it is worth indicating the extent to which the evidence by an expert doctor is taken in medical proceedings and the significance thereof for a proper course of the proceedings. Nevertheless, frequently opinions by experts are rather far from being objective. Often, as a result of falsely interpreted solidarity of representatives of the profession, experts disregard the lack of knowledge and diligence of a doctor and the organisational omissions in health care centers. Their opinions are very often unclear ambiguous, posing different hypotheses and the possibilities of damage which do not assist the court in properly assessing the events in matters for compensation. Because of that, a higher standard of conduct for expert doctors should be considered, the manner in which they are appointed and an improvement of the effectiveness of their work