Being ill is one of the most stressful things that can happen to a person, something which isn’t helped by the fact that the treatment may well be as stressful and unpleasant as the symptoms of the illness itself. The vast majority of the time, however, you can at least take some comfort in the fact that the doctors nurses and surgeons attending to your treatment will do the very best job that they can. Occasionally, however, mistakes are going to be made, and when the treatment you receive falls below the level which you might reasonably expect then it can be extremely distressing.
Suffering from a condition or illness is something which many people manage to handle with a degree of stoicism, accepting the hand that fate has dealt them and doing everything they can to aid recovery. The realisation that your medical treatment has been negligent is often much more difficult to deal with, adding a hammer blow of unfairness to the situation, and it’s only right that you should be able to seek compensation, whether it’s from the NHS or a private practitioner.
The term ‘medical negligence’ can cover any situation in which the treatment you’ve received has fallen below the standard you’d expect, and this lapse has resulted in injury or illness on your part. It could involve doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, anaesthetists or any other member of the staff, and amongst the most common forms of negligence are the following:
- Incorrect diagnosis of a condition
- The failure to spot an illness
- A mistake being made during surgery
- A doctor failing to warn a patient of the risks of a course of treatment
- Birth injuries to either mother or baby
Medical negligence cases are amongst the most complex compensation claims, since it has to be proved that the medical practitioners involved have made a mistake, and that this mistake can be directly linked to an on-going injury or illness. Working with an experienced personal injury solicitor will make the whole process much less stressful since, though it may still take some time, they’ll be by your side each daunting step of the way.
