Accidents
Clinical Negligence
We, here in the UK have a health service which is the envy of the world.
The majority of medical and nursing staff are dedicated professionals working to tight deadlines and budgets to deliver care; but, even with their high level of professionalism, sometimes mistakes can happen which may lead to a clinical negligence claim.
However, it is not always the case that an unexpected or disappointing outcome to treatment is due to some act or omission on the part of the healthcare professionals. All treatment carries some risk and patients are warned of serious risks.
That said, the law will award compensation for things going wrong if it can be proved that the treatment was negligent - which means that the standard of care fell below the standard generally accepted to be reasonable for that particular area of medicine; clinical negligence.
If you believe that you are the victim of clinical negligence, whether as a result of mis-prescribed drugs, complications following surgery or inappropriate treatment, then you may be able to make a clinical negligence claim.
What should I do?
You must seek advice quickly because there are strict time limits for making clinical negligence complaints, sometimes only 13 weeks.
We would strongly recommend that you talk to one of our specialist lawyers. They will be able to advise you that the best course of action, in the first instance, is to contact your healthcare professionals. There may be a genuine misunderstanding, or a problem in communication, that can often be resolved at this stage.
If this fails, we will advise you to make a more formal complaint. To complain about a GP you must write to the Practice Manager and to complain about a hospital you must write to the Complaints Manager. Examples of typical complaints are seeking an apology for the way you have been treated or your concerns about procedure within the medical environment.
If there is cause to believe that your complaint or concern is possibly as a result of clinical negligence, our specialist lawyers will be able to advise you further.
In particular, as with personal injury claims, there will be a number of matters that will need to be dealt with.
For example, we will need to obtain your medical records and check them. As our lawyers are not medical experts, we would instruct an independent medical expert in the relevant area of expertise to consider whether or not the treatment was negligent, and if it was, what damage it caused.
If it appears that we have enough evidence to prove clinical negligence, then solicitors may recommend issuing court proceedings, because the medical profession may deny liability initially, and, although clinical negligence cases can be settled by negotiation without the need to proceed to a full trial, they are rarely resolved without starting court proceedings.
