Making a claim for medical negligence in the UK is more common than you may think. Such claims are most commonly made for illness or injury that was caused or worsened as a result of mistakes made during treatment or surgery, as a result of misdiagnosis, delayed treatment or incorrect treatment as a result of misdiagnosis.
After you have suffered or started to suffer from medical negligence you have 3 years to make a medical negligence claim against the medical professional or the institution that was to blame for the negligence. If you weren’t aware of the medical negligence until a later date, for example where you received an incorrect treatment and a second opinion brought this to light years later, the 3 year time period starts from the moment that the medical negligence was discovered instead of when it occurred.
To make a medical negligence claim you will benefit from the support of an expert medical negligence solicitor. Most solicitors handle these type of claims on a no win, no fee basis, so they will carefully assess your chances of winning prior to taking on your claim, which means that if your claim does go ahead they believe you have a good chance of being successful.
Medical negligence claim pay-outs differ for each type of claim and the severity of the impact the negligence has had on your life. Your solicitor can give you an indication of what amount of compensation you may be able to claim for when they first assess your claim, however they can only give an indication as many factors need to be closely examined from both sides as part of your claim before a final amount can be agreed upon.
Most often these types of claims are settled out of court, but in some cases your claim could go to trial. If that happens you will be represented by a barrister who works closely with your solicitor on the matter, so you will always have expert advice on hand regardless of how the claim progresses.
Examples of medical negligence claims
When thinking of medical negligence many immediately think of mistakes made during surgery. However, medical negligence can happen at any time during treatment and by any type of medical professional, for example A&E negligence, care home negligence, dental negligence and cosmetic surgery negligence.
It may be that things went wrong during a procedure but there could also be problems with after care. If a medical professional fails to provide you with the necessary information on aftercare or fails to provide you with the correct aftercare, causing infection or other problems then that too counts as medical negligence.
In other instances, failure to refer you to a specialist or failure to get informed consent from you can also lead to a medical misdiagnosis claim. Failure to get informed consent has been a big issue specifically during childcare, where women often aren’t given the necessary information to choose to give birth or have a caesarean.
If you believe that you have suffered from medical negligence, get in touch with a no win, no fee solicitor and find out what compensation you may be entitled to.
