GP Negligence

The General Practitioner (GP) is often the first person you consult when you experience symptoms of an illness or pain following an accident. If there is a likelihood of there being something seriously wrong, the GP needs to refer you to a specialist, so that further investigations can be done to establish or confirm a diagnosis. Unfortunately, many medical conditions share common symptoms and sadly sometimes mistakes are made. There can be a delay or failure by the GP to refer patients and get an accurate diagnosis of the underlying illness that is causing the symptoms.

Not all mistakes are negligent. However, if a competent GP would have made a referral to a specialist and your GP failed to do so, this could well amount to negligence. Similarly, if a GP were to prescribe a medication that a competent GP would not have prescribed, you may have received negligent care. In either event, you may be entitled to compensation if you have suffered harm as a result.

When might you have a GP negligence claim?

A good example of when you might have a claim against your GP would be if you regularly went to him/her complaining of a particular symptom (e.g. headaches) and the GP failed to investigate all possible causes and didn't refer you to a specialist when the problem didn't resolve. Headaches are a good example because they may have a very sinister cause, such as a brain tumour, which needs to be eliminated, but much more frequently the cause will be far more trivial.

If you feel that you have a potential claim and want to discuss it further, please complete a claim form or request a call back and our in-house registered nurse will be in contact to provide free advice.