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Medical Negligence Compensation Claims
This type of claim relates to negligent treatment received from Doctors, Surgeons, Dentists, Midwives, Nurses and other health care professionals whether in the NHS or Private practice.
It also covers cosmetic and beauty care procedures such as laser eye surgery claims and laser hair removal claims and indeed all types of cosmetic procedures.
There are grounds for a Medical negligence claim when it can be shown that a practitioner has not exercised what is considered to be the normal standard of care and skill. This can occur in a number of ways.The most common general examples are:
Failures in diagnosis
Diagnosis is the basis of clinical judgment as it determines, firstly, whether there is a need to treat and, secondly, the mode of treatment required. To make a proper diagnosis, the practitioner must, if possible, take a full history, conduct a proper examination and, where appropriate, organize tests. If the practitioner does this, he is unlikely to be liable for misdiagnosis as the courts recognize that diseases and injuries can present in atypical ways, that practitioners are not infallible and that in some cases the state of medical science and art may make diagnosis certain only with the benefit of hindsight.
Errors relating to consent and advice
This generally concerns a medical practitioner’s failure to communicate adequately with the patient. The first area concerns cases where there has been no proper consultation or discussion before treatment, with the result that the patient does not consent to the treatment or part of it. Secondly, many cases involve inherent risks in the proposed mode of treatment, so that the patient consents without full knowledge of significant facts. The third area concerns alleged failure to give the patient adequate advice and warnings whether in a therapeutic or a non-therapeutic context.
Substandard treatment
Many medical malpractice actions derive from accidents occasioned during the course of treatment or during after-care. In a review of five hundred cases contained within the Medical Protection Society files, Leahy-Taylor, in Chapter 4 of The Doctor and Negligence (Pitman Medical, 1971), formed the view that the most common incidents concerning allegations of substandard treatment arose in cases involving retained swabs and other instruments after operations, burns, anaesthetic mishaps and cases where the wrong operation was performed. The vast bulk of such cases never get to trial.
Drug and anaesthetic accidents
The administration of an incorrect drug or an incorrect volume of the drug, including anaesthetics, will normally give rise to liability. Frequently the mishap arises from a breakdown in communication between the practitioner who prescribed the drug and the practitioner who administered it. In Collins v Hertfordshire County Council (1947) (page 182), a junior house surgeon misheard a consultant’s prescription and ordered from the pharmacist cocaine instead of procaine. As a result the patient was administered with a lethal dose. Hilbery J found the house surgeon, consultant and hospital liable. Similarly, where nurses misread a prescription and administered a lethal six ounces of paraldehyde instead of six drachms, they acted negligently (Strangways-Lesmere v Clayton (1936) (page 323). A ward sister was also found negligent for allowing four extra injections of streptomycin over and above the thirty prescribed to a patient who as a consequence suffered permanent loss of balance (Smith v Brighton and Lewes Hospital Management Committee (1958) (page 318).
Retained surgical products
The Medical Defence Union in a chapter headed “Perennial Pitfalls” in their 1983 annual report indicated that some 203 cases were reported to it from all over the world in respect of a variety of retained foreign bodies left in patients which included 70 instruments, 54 swabs and 23 sutures (see Giesen: 1988, page 139 footnote 79). Giesen provides interesting examples of tissues, swabs, sponges, packs, clamps, wires, tubes and forceps which illustrate the familiarity of this type of claim. It will be appreciated that once a claimant has proved that the retained body was left in as a result of the operation or treatment undertaken by the defendants, a good prospect of establishing liability arises. Accordingly most of these type of cases are settled (cf Leahy-Taylor (ibid) for such examples involving a swab left in after a caesarean operation, a drain tube left in after a mastectomy, and a Spencer Wells clip left in after an operation.)
Childbirth, sterilization and contraception
Given the volume of prospective mothers receiving medical care throughout their pregnancy and at childbirth, it is not surprising that allegations of negligence frequently arise. This is not only because of the inherent hazards of childbirth itself, but also because of the variety of risks that can arise throughout pregnancy and at labour connected with drugs affecting the mother and foetus, anaesthetic mishaps during labour, accidents in the use of forceps and accidents during caesarean sections. The House of Lords in the leading cases of Whitehouse v Jordan (1981) (page 341) and Sidaway v Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital (1985) (page 314) has affirmed that the medical standard of care espoused in Bolam (1957) (page 166) applies to all aspects of diagnosis, treatment and advice in matters of pregnancy, childbirth, sterilization and contraception.
How to make a Medical Negligence Claim
If you have a problem which falls broadly into the subcategories above then please contact us immediately. All enquires are dealt with in the strictest confidence.
As you can see, each and every situation is different and will depend on whether the practitioner has deviated from what are to considered to be the normal standards of good clinical practice. It will therefore always be a question of fact in each individual case.
If you have been injured or sustained any loss as a direct
result of a practitioners negligence please complete the medical
negligence claim assessment form.
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