Introduction
Medical negligence is related to the wrongful doing of a doctor or nurse, ultimately causing injury and impairment to health. It can lead to distress, financial loss, and pain.
As you can imagine, there needs to be a way to resolve and ensure the victims get justice. If you suffer due to a doctor’s negligence, you may seek compensation through a medical claim.
Yet, this can be hard to handle, so knowing your rights and steps is vital. We’re here to guide you through making a medical claim in the UK.
From knowing what mistakes count as medical errors to handling the laws, we aim to give you the expert information you need.
What is Medical Negligence?
This is when a healthcare provider does not follow the required standards of care, which results in harm, illness, or worsening of a patient’s condition.
Do You Have a Case for Medical Negligence?
You have to show that the injury being complained of was preventable and that it occurred due to a fault with your provider. Examples of when medical negligence happens include:
- Diagnostic error – This error occurs when a healthcare professional fails to diagnose or diagnoses incorrectly. This might lead to incorrect treatment, delayed necessary treatment or worse yet, lack of treating the condition at all due to not being accurately diagnosed.
- Birth injury – Birth injuries can happen if the medical team is not properly monitoring a mother and baby’s health or does not carry out delivery correctly.
These errors may result in complications like cerebral palsy, nerve damage, or brain injury, which can be permanent for the child as well.
- Surgical error – Surgical errors can include operating on the wrong body part, doing unneeded surgeries, leaving tools inside a patient, or causing harm that could have been avoided to organs or tissues.
- Prescription errors – Either not giving the correct drug, failing to learn about a person’s allergic reactions or recommended doses. And also providing other prescriptions that could lead to hazardous connections along with pre-existing drugs.
- Lack of informed consent – This is when a patient was not informed of certain risks that could arise from surgery, and as such sustained an injury. They would have grounds to sue for negligence.
For example, if there are complications during a procedure that the patients were not informed of before.
- Hospital-acquired infections – Poor sanitation, incorrect tool usage, or a lack of hygiene protocols can cause patients to become severely infected. These infections can prolong hospital stays, are often painful, and may lead to death.
Eligibility for Making a Medical Negligence Claim
Before you begin a claim, checking if you qualify is key. In the UK, these rules usually apply:
- The event happened in the last three years – UK law sets a three-year limit for medical negligence claims. This period starts on the day of the error or when you discovered it.
- You faced harm due to medical negligence – A clear link between the healthcare worker’s error and your harm or illness must exist.
- You can show proof – Medical files, expert views, and records of your harm are crucial to supporting your claim.
Your health should come first. If medical mistakes hurt you, seek other medical care to fix it first.
Keep all your medical records, including appointments, treatments, drugs, and chats with doctors. Photos of injuries, written notes, and cost records can back up your case if you go to trial.
The Medical Negligence Claims Process
Handling a medical negligence claim has several steps. Here is a brief view of the process to help you know what to expect:
1. Initial consultation
When you reach out to a lawyer or a service like Medical Negligence Assist, they will first check your case to see if it can move forward. This meeting is usually free; the experts will discuss your situation to decide if a claim is possible.
2. Preliminary investigations
Once you decide, your lawyer will collect medical files and ask for expert advice to show that something went wrong. This might mean talking to doctors who know about the care you had.
3. Claim letter
If the case has merit, your lawyer will put together a Claim Letter. This explains the charges against the doctor or hospital at fault. The letter shows the details of your case, like what went wrong and the harm it caused.
4. Response from the defendant
The defendant, which could be a doctor or a hospital, has four months to look into your claim and give an answer. They might agree they were wrong, offer to pay, or deny they did anything wrong.
5. Negotiation or court proceedings
Many medical negligence claims get solved outside of court by talking things out. But if no agreement is made, the case might go to trial. If you get a settlement offer you can live with, it’s usually advisable to take it. Court battles can be very tiring and expensive.
Compensation: What Can You Claim For?
If your medical negligence claim is successful, your compensation will be referred to as “damages.” This money tries to cover the following:
- General damages – Money for your pain, suffering, and how life’s different now.
- Special damages – These are costs you’ve faced due to someone’s mistakes, like medical bills, lost pay, care, therapy, and travel costs for treatment.
- Exemplary damages – To get these damages, you must show the other party was more than just careless; there must be proof of recklessness, intent, or disregard.
Regular negligence or unintentional accidents might not lead to exemplary damages.
Conclusion
Medical negligence happens more often than you think for various reasons. The doctor might be distracted or might not be competent enough.
If you have been a victim of medical malpractice, misdiagnoses or other negligence it is imperative that you act fast and get the support by professionals.
When you know how to claim and with the help of expert advice such as Medical Negligence Assist, it can give confidence of winning your compensation.
