A lot of people fail to realise that medical negligence claims involve all sorts of cases, and misdiagnosis or wrong diagnosis is one of the most common types of negligence that is claimed for.

The misdiagnosis of symptoms or failure to diagnose a patient can lead to medical conditions becoming worse or in the worst cases, can be life-threatening. A delay in diagnosis or a misdiagnosis can deprive a patient of the medical treatment they need in order to help their condition.

A misdiagnosis can occur for a number of reasons – the medical professional may have made a genuine mistake, may not have had the adequate training, or might not have been giving their patient the full attention they deserved.

When you visit your GP with a medical problem, you are sent away with medication or referred to a specialist to get sorted. However, there are cases where patients have visited their GPs only to be told to stop being anxious as there are no serious problems only to discover later that they are seriously ill. Of course this is rare, but incidents like this do and can happen.

Examples of misdiagnosis, wrong diagnosis or failing to diagnose

Fractures

There have been previous cases where a fractures have been dismissed as heavy bruising and the patients are sent away with an elastic bandage and pain killers. The patient then develops more severe pain so returns to the GP only to discover they do have a fracture and more damage has been caused as it should have been dealt with sooner. Some patients were required to have operations on fractures when they would not have previously had to if they had been properly diagnosed in the first place.

Cancer Misdiagnosis

Sometimes doctors will fail to diagnose a patient with cancer even if the patient has symptoms, or conversely the doctor will diagnose a patient with cancer when none is present.

If cancer is left untreated, it can spread, and treatments that might have worked originally, might not work if the cancer has become more aggressive. In cases where cancer is diagnosed by mistake, it can cause large amounts of stress and anxiety to the patient and to the patient’s loved ones.

Medical malpractice is a sensitive issue and requires extensive knowledge of both the legal and medical fields. If you have experienced a misdiagnosis or wrong diagnosis, you should firstly seek help from the Citizen’s Advice Bureau or Patient Advice and Liaison Services (PALS) and find out what your next steps are. Going through this process can be traumatic and by visiting these charities you will be given guidance on counselling and support, and be steered in the right direction of a specialist negligence lawyer who will be able to help you find out whether it’s worth making a claim for misdiagnosis negligence. To claim for compensation you will need to prove your condition would not have occurred or worsened if you had been referred to treatment straight away. The process can be long and tiresome but worth it in the long run not only to financially secure yourself in the future but also to raise awareness for others who are going through the same problems.

Clair O\’Hara is writing on behalf of Pearson Hinchliffe, specialists in medical negligence compensation including medical negligence solicitors.

Clair O\’Hara is writing on behalf of Pearson Hinchliffe (http://www.ph-medicalnegligence.co.uk), specialists in medical negligence compensation including medical negligence solicitors.

Author Bio: Clair O\’Hara is writing on behalf of Pearson Hinchliffe, specialists in medical negligence compensation including medical negligence solicitors.

Category: Advice
Keywords: medical negligence compensation, medical negligence lawyer, medical negligence solicitors