Clinical Negligence.

It is important to know that any compensation that may be payable to a claimant will only be paid if it can be shown that any treatment was carried out with neglect and resulted in your injuries.

There have been may reports recently highlighting the amount of money the NHS is paying out as compensation, one report quoting that the UK sets aside £700 per child birth for any potential claim, the report however does go on to state all the shortfalls the NHS maternity service has, many in the provision of staff and many other areas showing need for improvements.

Claims normally are caused by errors that could have can be avoided, for example, not obtaining consent for a treatment, giving someone the incorrect drugs, not explaining the possible downsides of a treatment, many of these are procedural/administrated errors that should be reduced.
The other major claim areas are in the areas of diagnosis and errors during treatment/operations.

The minimum you are entitled to is an explanation of what happened, why and anything that has been done to reduce the risk of this happening again. The NHS has information available to you online and in leaflet form on how to make a complaint, we would recommend that you should consider this as a course of action, whilst a clinical negligence solicitor will assist with any compensation due, the NHS complaints procedure in part will deal with fault and improvements.

Time Limits.

You are restricted in the time you have to make a claim, three years from the event, or 3 years from when you knew the event had caused a problem, the three year rule does not apply if the claimant is mentally disabled, and also does not apply to children, the later have until 21 to apply for compensation.
Do not delay; the closer you get to the time limit the harder it will be to process your claim.

What should you do?

First document everything, this will help you if you make a claim, if you have followed the NHS complaints procedure ask for copies where you can, you should also record any financial loss you have suffered and your time, you should then seek legal advice, you can do this by using our search facility and contacting one of the Clinical negligence solicitors in your area. The Clinical Negligence solicitor will assess your case and advise if you have a possibility of success and if they can help.

We would recommend you talk to a couple of solicitors as you need to understand the different costs and feel happy with the way they will work for you.

Your solicitor will discuss funding options with you, you may be able to claim via an insurance policy, at home or through work, you may be able to fund the claim yourself, or you may wish to take out a no win any fee agreement with your solicitor.

Look into all these options very carefully, understand what costs you will pay, how it impacts any potential claim and what liabilities you could have if you lose.
As we first mentioned the claim must prove two things, one is not enough.

Neglect - your solicitor must prove that the care you received was lower than that of an acceptable standard, yes this can be a bit of a woolly area and even if you did receive poor care, it is not always negligent care.

The second area is proving that the event caused your injury.
So for example, if a nurse made a mistake; that is not grounds for a claim, unless that mistake caused an injury.

It Is most likely that once your case has been accepted by a solicitor they will embark on a fact finding mission, and obtain professional opinion to build a case, if the independent professional opinion is not attainable than your claim is unlikely to proceed.

Once the solicitor has all the supporting documentation and the opinions they should be able to estimate the amount of damages you should receive, this will include your suffering, loss of income, change of lifestyle because of the event and care, all these will take into consideration what has happened to you and the future.

Claiming for someone else.

You can claim on behalf of a loved one, it may be that they are unable to act for themselves because they are a minor, incapable or are deceased; advice should be sort from a clinical negligence solicitor.

The claims process.

Once your solicitor has gained all the information and evidence they need for the case, it is very rare that the case will end up in court; the defending party are unlikely to want to undertake the costly and lengthy legal process to take a case to court and most cases are settled after the investigation stage.

Referring back to costs, we would recommend you seek clarity on who is responsible for cost if your case does not go to court, if it does and what happens to costs whatever the outcome.

If in doubt seek legal advice, the law society has a Clinical Negligence Accreditation Scheme for solicitors, to be a member the firm will need to apply, and the aim is to show the Law Society that the member can satisfy the level of knowledge and service delivered to clients required by the Scheme, it does not preclude other firms from acting for you in respect to clinical negligence cases, it may be that the firm do not want to be members as fees apply, or they may have other reasons.