A Guide To Medical Negligence
When you or a loved one experiences any degree of medical negligence, you will undoubtedly be feeling a complex mixture of emotions while simultaneously dealing with your or your loved one’s future treatment and recovery.
Here, for your information, is a comprehensive guide to medical negligence, what it involves, and subsequent compensation you may be entitled to that may go even a small way to enabling you to move on, both physically and emotionally.
What Is Medical Negligence?
Generally speaking, healthcare specialists are consummate professionals who always do their utmost to ensure they give their absolute professional best to each and every patient they see. However, upon occasion, medical negligence can occur and often at a great emotional and physical cost to the patient.
Broadly defined, medical negligence is essentially when a healthcare professional strays from the structured and proper care plan for a patient, which then results in injury or problems further down the line.
Medical negligence can occur during every single treatment you receive from medical professionals and can range from an operation that is not executed correctly, resulting in a longer recovery time to far more serious situations such as brain injury at birth. Compensation, whilst not aiding any emotional or injury recovery, can at least provide some sort of financial comfort for the journey ahead.
The Road To Compensation
Medical compensation due to medical negligence involves creating a lawsuit on behalf of the patients themselves or their loved one who has been injured as a direct result of the action taken by a professional healthcare provider.
In order to start a medical negligence claim, you should be able to unequivocally prove that you or your loved one has been provided with insufficient medical care and, furthermore, that this care resulted directly in either an injury or an existing conditioning deteriorating.
The Progression Of Your Claim
Upon your initial contact with the claims company, most professionals will offer you a non-committal, entirely free assessment of your claim, either on the phone or in person. If they consider that you do indeed have experienced a case of medical negligence, they will first invest considerable time in carrying out their initial investigation into the incident and also organise an independent medical assessment to be carried out of yourself or your loved one.
The aim of the company representing you will be to avoid a full-blown court hearing at all costs and to instead attempt to settle the matter privately and out of court. To do this, the company will first ascertain whether the other side in the case will admit and accept full responsibility and, if they do not, this may well mean that court proceedings may be issued.
Once you have decided to pursue a medical negligence claim, it is strongly advisable to do your research before selecting a company to represent you. Qualities to look for include as many years’ experience as possible and a national reputation.
