Medical Negligence Claims

Medical Negligence

Cases of personal injury caused by medical negligence are amongst the most distressing of all, due mainly to the trust we place in the people who provide our medical treatment. Being ill is stressful enough to begin with, and the treatment itself can often be painful and difficult, so the realisation that the people providing that treatment have done less than their very best for you can be extremely upsetting.

Of course, in the vast majority of cases, the people who provide your treatment – whether they are nurses, doctors or dentists – try their very best to provide the finest possible service and if things go wrong then it’s merely a question of bad luck. Sometimes, however, it’s clear that the standards of treatment have fallen below that which would reasonably be expected, and in cases such as this you have every right to make a claim for compensation, seeking a sum which will recognise the pain and suffering you’ve been put through as well as reimbursing you for any expenses, whether these are immediate, out of pocket expenses or an ongoing loss of your ability to earn the living you would have earned before the injury.

Medical negligence claims are amongst the most complex and lengthiest cases which personal injury lawyers take on. The nature of the injury, especially if the medical body involved denies negligence, is such that the arguments on both sides will be complicated and specialist, requiring expert input and the bringing together of all available material from the date upon which treatment began. For those reasons, cases such as these require experienced personal injury advice more than almost any other cases, whether you are taking on a huge body like the NHS (or some part of it) or a small private clinic. No matter what the details of the case, the basic principles remain the same:

1) The treatment you received fell below reasonable expected standards.
2) This failure resulted in you being injured or becoming ill.

In the past, the test used in a court to determine whether negligence had taken place was called the Bolam test, and this test took the form of a legal definition of negligence which stated that a medical practitioner would be found negligent if the treatment they provided fell below the standard which might reasonably be expected of someone working in their field. In more recent years this definition has become more flexible, particularly in cases which involve a doctor not providing a patient with the full range of information needed to provide informed consent. In other words, if you give permission for a certain course of treatment and discover, at a later date, that your doctor did not tell you what all the risks were, and that one of these risks actually ended up causing you injury, then your doctor may have been guilty of negligence, and you may have a case for compensation.

Claims of medical negligence can be made against a wide variety of practitioners, from surgeons to nurses, and can cover a vast array of circumstances. Claims may revolve around the following:

• Misdiagnosis
• Failure to spot an illness
• A mistake during surgery
• Failure to warn about the risks of treatment
• Incorrectly prescribed medication
• Injuries to mother and/or baby during birth

No matter what the individual circumstances of a case, the principle remains the same; mistakes were made, you suffered as a result, you shouldn’t be left paying the price. Whilst this principle remains the same whether your negligent treatment was provided in an NHS practice or a private concern, there are some differences between the two types of claim, in as much as the NHS has its’ own set complaints framework in place. As well as a complaints procedure, the NHS has its’ own constitution, which sets out in written form exactly what patients can expect from the NHS and what your rights are when things go wrong. The Constitution sets out the rights which any patient has if they feel something has gone wrong. These rights include:

a) The right to complain and to have your claim dealt with efficiently and fully investigated.
b) The right to learn the outcome of any investigation.
c) The right, if you’re not satisfied with the way in which your complaint has been handled, to take your case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
d) The right to receive compensation if you’ve been harmed via an act of negligence

If you feel unhappy with the way you’ve been treated you can also get in touch with a ‘consumer champion’ known as Local Health Watch, which was set up under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

In all cases, as with any compensation claims, the key to success often lies in making a complaint and starting the process as quickly as possible after the negligent event which caused the illness or injury. The NHS itself offers to deal with complaints within 12 months, but a full scale compensation claim, especially if the practitioner involved denies liability, can often take much longer. In many cases the practitioner may admit negligence but dispute the extent of the injury, in which case an interim payment might be made in order to maintain the quality of your life whilst the rest of the compensation is being finalised.

Complexities such as the variety of ways in which the three year limit is imposed, and the expert input needed to demonstrate negligence, are just two of the reasons why a medical negligence case requires the help of an experienced personal injury lawyer. If you are able to demonstrate both injury and negligence, then the amount of money awarded will be made up of two separate amounts:

— General Damages: this is an amount intended to reflect the injury you’ve suffered and the extent of that injury. The government publishes a book, the Judicial College Guidelines: The Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases, which is now in its’ 12th Edition. This book sets out the range of payment recommended for specific injuries and, although each case is different and the amount you receive will be effected by such factors as your age, previous health status, when and whether you will make a full recovery, and the effect which the injury is going to have on the rest of your life, the College Guidelines do offer a platform from which your lawyer will be able to make an assessment.

— Special Damages: the rest of the compensation will be calculated in strictly monetary terms, and is intended to provide relief from any financial hardship which might be caused by the injury you’ve suffered. This payment will be intended to cover loss of earnings brought about by the extent of your injury – both immediately and on into the future – and any other expenses which simply wouldn’t have been incurred had you not been the victim of negligence. This last will include factors such as medical treatment, ongoing care, specialist equipment and the cost of having your home adapted.

Birth Injury

Despite the advances made in more recent years, giving birth is still a very risky process, both for the mother concerned and the baby. If your labour is handled in a negligent manner it could have effects which will, quite simply, come to dominate the rest of your child’s life. Cases of birth negligence are amongst the most distressing there are, as they can leave parents having to cope with caring for a badly injured child, often for the rest of their life.

Whilst no compensation could ever totally counter the pain of this situation, it could play a vital part in ensuring your child gets to live as full and comfortable a life as possible, and could free you up to concentrate on looking after your child, safe from the stress of having to fund their care. Types of birth injury which might occur through negligence include:

• Cerebral Palsy due to lack of oxygen during birth.
• Paralysis of the arm caused by a trapped shoulder during delivery.
• Injury to the spinal cord – can be very serious or even fatal.
• Fractures to the arms and legs.

If you feel that your child was injured because the treatment they received whilst being born fell below that which you might reasonably expect, then you have every right to pursue a claim on their (and your) behalf.

Dental Negligence

Compared to the thought of a mistake being made by a surgeon performing a complicated procedure on your person, the idea of dental negligence might seem trivial in comparison. A mistake made whilst performing something as complex as root canal treatment, however, or a multi-faceted programme of cosmetic procedures, could have a highly detrimental effect.

Leaving aside the pain and discomfort caused by mishandled dental work, there is the fact that a botched cosmetic treatment, or one for which the risks were never fully explained, could leave a patient feeling unable to face the world, go out to work or even socialise, with the solution to the problem often involving more expensive dental work to correct the mistakes which have initially been made.

No matter how severe the problems are, they are problems which have been caused because a dentist, dental nurse or dental technician failed to do their job properly and it would be grossly unfair for you to be left in pain and having to foot the bill for putting things right. A successful compensation claim will recognise this pain and make sure you’re not out of pocket.

Cosmetic Surgery

As cosmetic surgery grows ever more popular, so the number of people suffering at the hands of disreputable practitioners seems bound to keep growing. The relatively unregulated nature of the field, particularly where non-invasive treatments are concerned, means that many private clinics are offering unqualified access to substances such as Botox and dermal fillers, which in the wrong hands, can be disfiguring or even dangerous.

If you find yourselves on the receiving end of negligent plastic surgery, you might end up suffering from complications such as:

• Bleeding.
• Pain and discomfort – this may be expected for a few days, but if it lasts for longer and can’t be treated with painkillers it could be a sign that something has gone wrong.
• Infection – this could lead to you having to take antibiotics or, at worst, needing further surgery.
• Scars – some scarring after invasive surgery is inevitable, but it should be well hidden and should fade over time. Highly visible scarring is another sign that things have gone wrong.
• Implant failure – if an implant leaks it could cause serious health problems, and a change in shape will be aesthetically displeasing.

Whilst celebrity cosmetic surgery horror stories often make the headlines, the true picture of such negligence is often ordinary people who may suffer low confidence or self-esteem, seeking a small boost, and being left with a problem such as scarring or a drooping eyelid, something which could have a devastating psychological effect. Whilst cosmetic surgery may often be seen as something fairly trivial, negligence never is, and if you’ve been treated badly you shouldn’t hesitate to seek compensation.

Misdiagnosis

While most medical negligence claims will revolve around the case of someone doing something and doing it badly, there are some which are based upon the medical personnel involved failing to act. If you present with a set of symptoms and your doctor misdiagnoses the problem, either missing it altogether or mistaking it for something else entirely, then this could have a devastating effect.

Many courses of treatment depend, for the maximum chance of success, upon being instigated as early in the development of the illness as possible. That’s why a misdiagnosis, if it could be reasonably expected that a qualified person should make the correct diagnosis, could be amongst the most serious forms of negligence there are. Given the nature of such cases, which hinge upon what should or shouldn’t have been inferred from a set of symptoms, expert help in building your case, gathering the evidence and explaining precisely how you were badly treated, is absolutely imperative.