Almost all doctors and other medical professionals maintain incredibly high standards of practice, but with a lot of medical treatments there is often a high level of risk involved, and sometimes mistakes do happen. In all cases where yourself, your child or your spouse has been injured after receiving medical treatment you are entitled to an explanation as to what went wrong. But what if you require more than an explanation and apology? Medical negligence, also known as clinical negligence, can occur in all sorts of procedures and situations, but how can you prove it and claim for compensation?
Duty of Care
This is a key term when it comes to making a claim for medical negligence. There are a number of misdemeanours that can be classified as a breach of the duty of care. These include:
- Failure to obtain consent to perform an operation
- Taking insufficient care of the patient during surgery
- Failing to identify or delays in identification of medical problems
- Delayed referral to specialists
- Prescribing the wrong medication
- Failing to give due warning of risks from treatment
What’s the difference between personal injury and medical negligence claims?
The primary difference between a personal injury claim and a medical negligence claim is the amount of evidence needed to bring a case. In a personal injury claim it must simply be proved that someone else was to blame for causing the injury. In a case of medical negligence, it must be proven through the evidence of specialist medical experts that there were serious errors in the treatment that a competent doctor would not have made and that these errors played a part in the injury that is being claimed for.
Who should you contact?
At Clear Law we have years of experience in dealing with medical negligence and clinical negligence cases. Our solicitors specialise in this tricky area of the law and over the years we have helped a great many people get the compensation they deserve after they have suffered at the hands of health professionals. Contact us today to see if we can help you claim the compensation you are entitled to.