Medical Negligence
Every year millions of people in the UK receive medical treatment. In the majority of cases the treatment and care is of a high standard. However, in a small but significant number of cases, patients are injured by health carers when there is a breach in duty of care.
Medical professionals and healthcare workers owe their patients a 'duty of care'. This means that they are responsible for providing an acceptable level of care and for protecting their patients from harm.
As a patient you are entitled to expect reasonable standards of care and treatment. If these are not met, your doctors and other healthcare professionals may have committed a breach of their duty of care. Medical or clinical negligence are the terms used to describe cases where this duty of care is breached.
Doctors are also responsible for making sure that you properly understand all the risks that are involved in your treatment, or of any surgical procedure. This allows you to give informed consent for your treatment. If you are not given all the appropriate information, you may have a claim for clinical negligence.
There are many types of clinical negligence and doctors have been found in breach of duty of care for the following:
- Failed or delayed diagnosis of a condition, which results in your chances of recovery being reduced
- Misdiagnosed fractures
- Careless surgical procedures
- Incorrect or inappropriate treatment
- Medication errors
- A bad reaction to a drug
- Delayed referral to a specialist
- If during childbirth there is a delay in responding to signs of the baby's distress and this leads to either the child and/or the mother being injured
To succeed with a medical negligence claim you need to prove that an error occurred, the care received fell below an acceptable standard and that as a direct result of these errors, you sustained the injury or harm that you are claiming for.
If you feel that you have a potential claim and want to discuss it further, please contact us on 0845 644 5135, complete a claim form, or request a call back and our in-house registered nurse will be in contact to provide free advice.
