Medical Negligence Claims
Medical Negligence Compensation Claims
Claims for medical negligence often arise following an adverse outcome from medical treatment such as an unexpected injury or condition or aggravation of the original condition. Due to the nature of work undertaken by medical professional’s mistakes can be made and as a result this caused injuries which could have been prevented. This is known as either clinical negligence or medical negligence.
Medical Professional’s Duty of Care
Your doctor owes you a duty of care and this involves informing you of your risks for proposed treatment and obtain your informed consent to any operation or treatment. Your doctor must diagnose what the problem is correctly and not provide treatment that is unnecessary. Your doctor must ensure that they correctly prescribe medications to you if needed to treat your condition. These are only some of the duties that your doctor owes you.
If the doctor breached this duty to you and as a result you suffer injury or illness, then you could have a medical negligence claim.
There is a test of whether a doctor has been negligent or not. The test to use when a doctor is negligent or not is whether what the doctor did is something that a reasonably skilled doctor in the same position would have done.
Effects of Negligence
Sometimes medical negligence can make an existing problem worse, or sometimes it can cause a whole new problem.
It is very difficult to obtain information from the hospital or doctor who has carried out the treatment and it can be difficult to obtain any admission of liability. Sometimes people want a hospital or doctor to say sorry but they won’t do it.
What does NHS constitution state regarding making a medical negligence claim or a medical negligence complaint?
- You have the right to have any complaint you make about NHS services acknowledged within 3 working days and to have it fully investigated.
- You have the right to discuss the manner in which the complaint is to be handled, and to know the period within which the investigation is likely to be completed and the response sent.
- You have the right to be kept informed of progress and to know the outcome of any investigation into your complaint, an explanation of the consequences and confirmation that any action needed in consequence of the complaint has been taken or is proposed to be taken.
- You have the right to take your complaint to the independent Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or Local Government Ombudsman, if you are not satisfied with the way your complaint has been dealt with by the NHS.
- You have the right to make a claim for judicial review if you think you have been directly affected by an unlawful act or decision of an NHS body or local authority.
- You have the right to medical negligence compensation where you have been harmed by negligent treatment.
How much is my claim worth?
This depend on the injury sustained and the effects it has had upon you. To see a guide, please view our compensator calculator.