John Knight

By John Knight john.knight

I am often approached by individuals who are angry or upset because they feel that NHS staff have been unpleasant to them during their hospital stay, or they have received poor personal care. This is probably not a clinical negligence claim, and should be dealt with by the NHS internal complaints procedure.

The majority of the time, when we visit the doctor when we are ill, they are able to accurately diagnose our condition and treat us appropriately. This either alleviates or stops our suffering, and we are able to get on with our day-to-day lives.

Sometimes however, medical professionals can either misdiagnose an illness or treat it incorrectly, causing the situation to get worse. This can also add to the stress of being ill.

In 2012, it was reported there were 14,171 medical negligence claims closed, which was 13% higher than 2011. Of those medical negligence claims, 63% resulted in claims being awarded to the individual, and on average took less than 16 months from the start of the claims process to the claim being awarded (NHS Litigation Authority 2012).

If you have been a victim of medical negligence, you can claim compensation for the pain and suffering that you have suffered as a result of the healthcare provider’s negligence. You can also claim for any out of pocket expenses you have incurred for example, lost earnings or prescription charges. If you have received negligent medical treatment, been mis-diagnosed or not treated appropriately, then you may be entitled to make a no win no fee claim for compensation.

Typical medical negligence claims include:

• Failure to diagnose
• Failure to treat
• Delay in treatment
• Incorrect or improper treatment
• Failure to gain a patients consent

In order for your medical negligence claim to succeed, you must be able to show that the medical professional has breached their duty of care towards you. Most of the time this is done by obtaining a report from suitability qualified experts who will comment about whether the care you received was of a reasonable standard.

For example, if you attended A&E because you injured you ankle and the staff failed to diagnose a fracture, a report would be obtained from a consultant in accident and emergency medicine.

How long will the claim take? This is very difficult if not impossible to anticipate. If you decide to embark on this process, you must be prepared that the claim can take a long time (the average claim takes 16 months). The claim will require the input of numerous individuals including your legal advisor, the defendant and other medical professionals.

John Knight is the Head of the Personal Injury and Medical Negligence departments at Ringrose Law. He has worked in the Personal Injury team at Ringrose Law since 2003, and particularly specialises in complex and high value claims such as accidents at work, road traffic accidents and accidents resulting in death. He also specialises in representing families at inquests and helping people suffering serious injuries from assaults or other criminal activities via the Criminal Injury Compensation Authority.

By John Knight john.knight

If you have a road traffic accident and report it to your insurance company, that company will almost always ask if you have suffered a personal injury in the accident, and if so they will point you in the direction of a lawyer. They may well imply that if you go to anyone other than the lawyer they suggest it is likely to cost you money, take longer and be less beneficial to you. The lawyer they suggest will almost certainly not be local.

In many cases the reason that a client comes to us following an accident is because they are unable to work and they are therefore losing money as a result. Whilst the loss is sometimes a relatively simple arithmetical calculation, in many cases that is not the position.

At Ringrose Law, the Personal Injury team has recently settled a case for a client involved in a nasty road accident. The client had just become self-employed and proving how much it is likely that he would have earned in his new venture was a real challenge.

Originally the client contacted a solicitor on his insurance company’s panel. They referred him to a medical expert who we would never use and when it came to trying to calculate his financial losses they were clearly out of their depth.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that they were based miles away and could not offer my client a face to face meeting. After meeting with the client and taking his case on, we are delighted to say that the client accepted a substantial five figure sum to cover his losses and compensate him for his pain and suffering.

Whenever someone is involved in a road accident, we would strongly recommend clients to contact a local solicitor who can look at the individual merits of a client’s case. I have dealt with many cases where clients have started out with a solicitor on their insurance company’s panel and then sought to change to us.

Due to new funding restrictions imposed by the government, it will be more difficult for clients to change solicitors in the future, which makes choosing the right solicitor at the outset absolutely vital.

John Knight is the Head of the Personal Injury and Medical Negligence departments at Ringrose Law. He has worked in the Personal Injury team at Ringrose Law since 2003, and particularly specialises in complex and high value claims such as accidents at work, road traffic accidents and accidents resulting in death. He also specialises in representing families at inquests and helping people suffering serious injuries from assaults or other criminal activities via the Criminal Injury Compensation Authority.