Experts in Hospital Negligence Claims

Hospital Negligence Claims

A hospital is somewhere you go to recover from injury, not acquire an injury. In essence, hospital negligence claims exist because such injury happens too easily.

If you believe that you or a person close to you suffers harm through hospital negligence, act now. Get in touch with The Medical Negligence Experts to see if you have grounds to make a hospital negligence claim.

The NHS is the envy of health care systems around the world, but it is not infallible. Moreover, hospital injuries are not the domain of a single particular department. While busy, pressured environments like Accident & Emergency may be more prone to hospital negligence purely for the high volume of patients they see and treat, you can be affected while staying on a ward, during or after an operation, or through incorrect diagnosis.

When acceptable standards of care fall then people can suffer unnecessarily. The Medical Negligence Experts are partnered legal teams that can help victims successfully claim compensation for hospital injuries. We are partnered with medical malpractice solicitors who specialise in medical negligence. Even better, they understand the worry and suffering you may be experiencing from a medical malpractice claim.

What is Hospital Injuries Negligence?

In truth, the majority of staff in both NHS and private hospitals are care professionals. Moreover, they take their duty of care toward their patients very seriously. The high standard of service they provide is what their patients need to recover from their illness or injury.

Nevertheless, there are times when even people or processes can let patients down; mistakes happen, and injuries occur. Furthermore, no hospital employee is exempt from the breach of duty. Some grey area, however, occurs regarding independent contractors working at a hospital.

At The Medical Negligence Experts, we tap into a network of malpractice lawyers who know hospital and medical negligence. If your claim assessment is successful you’ll be connected to a law personal injury law firm to seek representation that appreciates what you have gone through. Moreover, they’ll also appreciate what you are possibly still enduring as a result. Above all, they recognise the effect that this injury resulted in a change to your life and your family.

Common types of hospital negligence that can lead to injury and hospital compensation claims include these.

Incorrect diagnosis may happen in Accident and Emergency

For instance, you receive an assessment deeming further treatment to be unnecessary. Or, you receive the incorrect treatment, or it could result from a specialist misinterpreting your symptoms. There are many symptoms which are present in various conditions – pain, shortness of breath, and fever are just a few.

A doctor’s role when diagnosing a condition is to look for the illness which fits the symptoms. In contrast, a true medical professional is not permitted to attempt to make the symptoms fit what they believe to be the cause.

Misdiagnosis can happen from even the most capable doctor without them being clinically negligent

To prove negligent misdiagnosis, you must show in the incompetence of the medical professionals in question. In essence, another doctor with the same information would reasonably expect to diagnose an illness and prescribe the right treatment.

Making mistakes during operation

These can include errors with:

• the quantity or administration of anaesthetic;
• operating on the wrong part of the body, or;
• leaving foreign objects inside a person.

All of these can have potentially fatal consequences.

Poor post-operative care

This can also be grounds for claiming compensation if you suffer injury. Or your recovery undergoes a delay as the result of an infection. The actual surgery may go well, but poor nursing care afterwards could lead to conditions like sepsis.

Failure to obtain informed consent

Even with modern advancements, surgery is still inherently risky and may not always have the hoped-for results. It’s the surgeon’s role to ensure their patient know all potential outcomes and risks before they undergo surgery.

Hospital-acquired infections

MRSA and C-Difficile are two of the most common types of hospital-acquired infection. In a healthy person, they can have little to no ill effect, but when these viruses attack someone whose immune system is already weak, they can wreak devastating consequences.

Hospitals must have robust processes in place to help avoid the spread of these infections. But when they don’t follow the correct procedures and a patient falls ill, staff may be negligent in their care.

Receiving the wrong medication

This pharmacy negligence occurs either by the dispensing pharmacist in the hospital or the nursing staff on the ward. For instance: a patient receives the incorrect medication but doesn’t suffer any ill effects or delays in their recovery.

In turn, a hospital compensation claim wouldn’t be valid, because there was no injury. It would, however, be grounds for a formal complaint to the hospital.

What Does Compensation Include?

The payment of hospital compensation can cover loads of different injuries to you or a family member.

Physical pain and suffering

This section can also include if there’s a delay in your recovery from initial illness due to negligence in hospitals.

An example would be if you go to the hospital for a routine operation. From there, you expect to be back at work within a fortnight. Unfortunately, due to negligent post-operative medical care, you develop an infection which made you very ill. In turn, this infection proceeds to set back your recovery time by as many as three weeks.

NHS Complaint vs. NHS Compensation

If your injury occurred at an NHS hospital, you have the right to request a thorough investigation of your complaint. You should also receive information about the outcome and any subsequent action the hospital may take, such as changing their working practice.

You can escalate it to the industry ombudsman if you are unsatisfied with the management of your complaint. If your accident was due to unlawful treatment – for example, receiving treatment from someone who falsified their qualifications, or the act of negligence was deliberately done to cause you harm – you can also request a judicial review.

It is not necessary to go through the NHS’ formal complaints system before you put forward hospital injury claims. However, it may be beneficial if you do as their investigation will give a good understanding of whether your injury was due to negligence and you are therefore eligible to claim compensation.

Every hospital procedure carries with it some degree of risk, and it is possible for injury or illness to occur even if every reasonable precaution is taken to avoid this. For a compensation claim to be valid, a person or organisation needs to be responsible, otherwise who will pay the damages?

An NHS Complaint

While raising an NHS complaint can help give you answers and the reassurance that no one else need suffer in the way you did, it can take several months to resolve. As there is a strict statutory limit of three years in which to submit a request for compensation, that may be the time you don’t want to waste. It is possible to file a complaint and begin a compensation claim at the same time.

Even if the outcome of the investigation into your complaint is that your care was negligent, the NHS complaint process cannot pay you compensation. Likewise, a successful compensation claim will not necessarily lead to any changes in hospital practice or discipline of the person responsible. The two actions – complaint and compensation request – have different aims and outcomes.

The NHS has its own body, called the NHS Litigation Authority, for managing payment requests. We do recommend that you instruct a No Win No Fee solicitor to take on your case and challenge the NHS. Going alone, in contrast, without the assistance of a knowledgeable lawyer can result in costly legal fees.

No Win No Fee* Hospital Injury Compensation Claims

We believe that expert legal representation and advice should be available to everyone who needs it. Therefore, this is accessible with our partnered Lawyers No Win No Fee* agreement. These agreements do away with upfront legal costs and remove the financial risk of making a hospital negligence claim.

*No Win No Fee: Typically, customers pay 25% including VAT of the compensation amount that is recovered by our third-party law firms, although this is subject to your individual circumstances and the actual fee may be more or less than this. Termination fees may apply if you do not keep to the terms of the agreement.

It also gives you the security of knowing that when you sue for medical negligence:

• your personal injury solicitor will work their hardest to ensure you receive maximum compensation;
• moreover, they receive no money unless they achieve a successful outcome for you.

How Can We Help?

The solicitors we work with at The Medical Negligence Experts have extensive experience in representing clients who have been victim to negligence in hospitals, and who are seeking compensation. We understand that you may still be recovering physically.

Plus, starting a legal process for damages may be the furthest thing from your mind. Some people may put it off until they feel better and get their head around what they’ve been through.

To start a hospital negligence claim, you have three years from:

• the date of your injury, or;
• from the time you became aware treatment led to the injury.

The only exception is if you were under 18 at the date of the incident. In that case, you have until your 21st birthday to make a claim. It is also possible to act as a “litigation friend” for someone who is:

• under the age of 18, or;
• judged to be legally unable to manage their financial affairs due to a mental disability.

In this instance, any compensation goes into a trust for the victim’s care and recovery. In addition, it can accrue interest until the victim can manage their finances themselves.

In other exceptional cases, the court can extend the limitation period.

Time Limits to Consider with Hospital Negligence Claims

Above all, there are strict legal timelines for submitting hospital injury claims to court. Therefore, we recommend you contact us right away to give your case the best possible chance to succeed. For patient claims to be valid, you need to prove both that you received negligence hospital care and this care causes your injury.

The onus is on the claimant to provide this evidence. Therefore, this information becomes harder to obtain as time passes, making it more difficult to sue a hospital for negligence.

You can make a free, no-obligation enquiry by contacting us today. One of our expert medical negligence experts will talk to you about your experience. They’ll also ascertain if you could indeed have a claim.

If you are connected to a partnered law firm, they will give you reasoned professional advice about whether or not you can proceed. If so, that law firm will act on your behalf by:

• compiling evidence and;
• raising the claim with your care provider.

Throughout, your solicitor will be negotiating and advising you to achieve the best possible outcome for you.

The Medical Negligence Experts is respected in our field not only for the success that we and our partnered law firms achieve for our clients but because of our high standards of customer service. All our claimants and hospital negligence claims in the UK receive equal treatment.

That’s the case regardless of the seriousness or nature of their injury. The right compensation represents the ability for you to move beyond your injury, so why would you expect any less from us?

Our process to negligence claims

Above all, we offer a free claim assessment to see if we can connect you to a dedicated medical negligence solicitor who supports and represents you during your claim.

You’ll have their email address and phone number, so you can share information immediately. In addition, you can obtain answers from a person who understands your claim.

Obtaining compensation for medical negligence can be a lengthy process, but you can start it today. Contact The Medical Negligence Experts now.