The National Health Service in the UK is a wonderful thing, offering free healthcare to everyone. But, just as in private practice, medical mistakes can be made by GPs, nurses, doctors, midwives, consultants and surgeons.

If you\’re reading this then chances are you believe you have suffered from clinical negligence, often referred to as medical negligence, and you want some form of medical negligence compensation. This is a fair and understandable reaction and should it be proven that a mistake was made, you are fully entitled to make a medical negligence claim.

There are, however, some hoops that have to be jumped through before bringing a case to court and a level of compensation can be set.

First and foremost, a duty of care has to be established. That is that the NHS were the ones under whose care you resided at the time of treatment. Obviously, if you were in an NHS hospital and not paying for your treatment then you were under the care of the NHS. This is a relatively simple test to pass.

Secondly, it needs to be determined that the NHS breached their duty of care towards you. This is what represents the medical negligence. Whatever mistake was made, it has to be provable.

The list of medical mistakes that qualify is endless, but includes, as examples, amputation of the wrong limb, misdiagnosis (treating you for the wrong illness), mis-administration of a drug (leading to an overdose or underdose), a mistake during surgery leading to more pain or further surgery or failure to take action, for example in keeping hospital areas clean, leading to you contracting a bug while under their duty of care.

Finally it has to be established that whatever medical mistake was made was the cause of your suffering – this could be physical suffering in the form of pain, reduced movement and the like, or mental suffering in the form of depression, anxiety or other psychological disorder.

It is strongly advised that should you feel you have suffered from some from of clinical negligence you contact a medical negligence specialist in order to determine all of the above and then pursue your case on your behalf. A medical negligence solicitor will take a look at all the evidence, assess your medical records and inform you of the whether or not there is a case to be answered.

If there is, they will proceed to sue the NHS on your behalf in an attempt to win medical negligence compensation for you. The amount of compensation is not set by the solicitor, it will be determined by the judge presiding over the case and will depend on the level of suffering and seriousness of the mistake made.

In many cases, the NHS may well wish to settle out of court and offer you compensation directly. Again, discuss this with your solicitor to see if the amount offered is high enough to warrant not going to court.

Suing the NHS is something one of us want to have to do, but where we have been mistreated we have the right to do so.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Pearson Hinchliffe, clinical negligence solicitors and experts in suing the NHS for compensation.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Pearson Hinchliffe (http://www.ph-medicalnegligence.co.uk), clinical negligence solicitors and experts in medical negligence compensation cases.

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Pearson Hinchliffe, clinical negligence solicitors and experts in suing the NHS for compensation.

Category: Legal
Keywords: suing the NHS, sue NHS, medical negligence, medical negligence compensation