Hampshire Medical Negligence Solicitors – No Win No Fee Claims Lawyers Guide

Medical negligence Hampshire

Medical negligence Hampshire

Are you trying to find a medical negligence solicitor in Hampshire? Are you struggling to know where to start?  We should be able to help you by providing advice about what to look for and what to ask any potential solicitor before taking them on. If you’re looking for medical negligence solicitors in Hampshire, then we’ll give you tips and advice on choosing the best medical negligence solicitor to help with your case.

Medical Negligence Assist can help by offering free legal advice and our panel of medical negligence solicitors can cover the Hampshire area.  Therefore, to discuss your claim right away, please call 0800 652 3087 to speak with a specialist.

To find out more before speaking to us, please carry on reading this guide.

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How To Choose A Solicitor For A Hampshire Medical Negligence Case

Many people who are looking for a personal injury solicitor to help with clinical or medical negligence claims speak with colleagues for advice, ask family for recommendations and even turn to reviews of solicitors.  All of these things can work but might not always result in you being matched with the right solicitor. Therefore, we’ll provide advice throughout this guide about what you should ask any potential solicitor and what to look for when discussing your claim.

Before doing so, you should check whether you’re likely to be offered a no win no fee agreement. Many solicitors will check the following 3 questions prior to taking your case on:

  1. Were you provided with substandard treatment by a medical professional?
  2. Did that treatment result in you suffering an injury, being made ill or was your existing condition made worse?
  3. And did the treatment take place within the last 3 years as that’s the medical negligence claims time limit in the UK? (Medical negligence time limit may vary please call our advisors for more information).

When you’ve finished reading this guide, if you have answered yes to the 3 questions above and would like to discuss the circumstances surrounding your claim, please get in touch and speak with one of our expert advisors.

Will I Be Limited To Medical Negligence Solicitors In Hampshire?

You might think that you have to use medical negligence solicitors who are local to Hampshire but that’s not always the case. Modern methods of communicating between solicitors’ and their clients mean that communication can happen via phone and email.

Our panel of medical negligence solicitors can cover the Hampshire area so please get in touch if you’d like to discuss how we could help you begin your claim.

Will I Have A Medical Exam In Hampshire?

You’ll usually need a medical assessment as part of any claim so that your medical negligence lawyer has evidence to show the extent of your injuries.  To ensure you don’t travel too far for your assessment, you could have your assessment carried out by one of these doctors in the Hampshire area. Here’s a sample that we could use:

David Wright
Hampshire Sports Injury and Physiotherapy Clinic,
Southampton, SO15 1AG.

Phillipa Keech
Caxron Close,
Andover, SP10 3FG.

Altaf Choudry
Cumberland House,
Southampton, SO15 2BG.

Will I Need To Read Medical Negligence Solicitors Reviews?

Some people like to use medical negligence solicitor reviews to help choose their solicitor.  This is fine to a point. It will give you an insight into previous client’s experience of the solicitor, but we’d recommend you contact them directly prior to making a decision.

When you do so, you could ask:

  • What cases the solicitor has dealt with recently.
  • How they plan to handle your claim.
  • What level of compensation they think you could receive.
  • When they’ll update you throughout the duration of your claim.

What Claims Could Our Panel Of Medical Claims Solicitors Conduct?

To help you understand what type of negligence could lead to a personal injury claim, we’re going to provide some examples over the coming sections of this guide.  It’s not a conclusive list, which means you shouldn’t worry if you don’t see an example similar to yours.  Please get in touch if you’re unsure whether you could claim or not.

Negligence In Surgery / Operations

Most surgery, including cosmetic procedures, comes with some form of risk associated with it.  You will usually be informed of what the procedure involves and any risks that the surgeon foresees.

Even though the procedure might be risky, there is a complete difference between a potential risk and an avoidable injury due to surgical negligence.

For example, you may be able to claim in cases like these:

  • If you suffer complications which require further treatment due to inadequate medical clips or failed suturing.
  • If items of surgical equipment are left inside you.
  • If the wrong part of the body is operated on.

Clinical Negligence During A Birth

It takes many years to train as a midwife or other medical professions involved in pregnancy and the delivery of a new baby.  Mentoring, supervision and exams are all carried out to ensure staff know how to handle a basic delivery but also know what to do and how to react in more complex situations.

If a mother or baby is injured because of negligence during a birth, then it may be possible to claim compensation for any injuries or suffering caused.  This could happen if staff don’t follow the recommended procedures, fail to deal with problems promptly or if they don’t spot the problem at all.

Some examples of injuries to a baby during childbirth could include:

  • Cuts and lacerations when forceps are used in correctly.
  • Oxygen deprivation leading to brain injuries.
  • Fractured or displaced bones.

In mothers, injuries could include:

  • Perineal tears.
  • Pre-eclampsia misdiagnosis.
  • Inadequate suturing.
  • Damage to organs during a Caesarean section.

Hospital Negligence Claims

Hospitals offer so many different services that are required by those who are injured or unwell. It is vital that at all times hospital medical staff act in a professional way not breaching their duty of care they have to a patient. Hospital negligence could happen if medical staff allow their level of standards to fall below the expected level causing new avoidable injuries, preventable illnesses or pre-existing conditions to worsen.

Suing a hospital for negligence might be possible if:

  • You became ill because you contracted a super bug like MRSA due to unhygienic practices.
  • A surgeon injured you following a negligent act.
  • Your health deteriorated because you were prescribed the wrong medication due to a negligent misdiagnosis.

If you have suffered unnecessary harm because of hospital negligence, please get in touch with one of our specialist advisors. We offer free legal advice about making a clinical negligence claim and can advise you on your chances of successfully claiming compensation.

Suing A Nursing Home For Negligence

Choosing the right nursing home for a loved one requires you to put a lot of faith in the home’s management and staff.  They are duty bound to try and make patients as safe and as comfortable as possible during their stay. This means they need to work within safety guidelines and procedures.  Any failure to do so, which causes a patient to suffer, could lead to a compensation claim.

Suing a nursing home for negligence could be possible in these cases:

  • If the staff fail to administer prescribed medication which causes a patient to become ill.
  • When a patient suffers bruising or fractures caused by a fall where staff have failed to carry out lifting procedures correctly or they have been carried out by untrained staff.
  • If the patient suffers pain from bed sores or pressure sores caused by a lack of regular movement.

Cancer Clinical Negligence

As cancer detection methods improve, the prognosis for many cancer patients has improved in recent years. That said, it still helps a lot if your cancer is spotted early and treatment begins as soon as possible.

If the cancer is detected later on, then it may have advanced to a stage that causes worse symptoms or requires a more painful course of treatment. Therefore, if the delay is caused because a medical professional failed to spot the cancer when they would have been expected to do so, diagnosed it as something else or failed to refer you for tests, then you may be able to claim compensation for cancer clinical negligence for any additional unnecessary suffering.

GP Negligence Cases

Your GP is likely to be the first person you’ll visit if you have any medical concerns.  Their medical knowledge is pretty phenomenal if you consider the number of cases that they resolve within the first 10-minute appointment.

However if a GP fails to identify with a medical condition they would have been expected to diagnose, which leads to either failure to prescribe medication or refer to a specialist for further testing and treatment and you suffer more than you needed to because your condition worsened unnecessarily due to lack of treatment it maybe classed as GP negligence.

If any mistake by a GP causes you to suffer an injury or make your illness worse, please get in touch if you would like to find out how we could help.

Dental Medical Negligence

Visiting the dentist can be a nervous time for many people.  Any nerves can be made worse if you’ve been injured or made ill during dental treatment.  All dentists and their staff have a duty of care to ensure patients are safe while undergoing any form of treatment. This could be achieved by using equipment, which is well maintained and fit for purpose, following the recommended dental procedures and maintaining a good level of hygiene.

Examples of dental medical negligence which might result in a claim include:

  • If you suffer pain due to an incorrect anaesthetic dosage.
  • If you undergo treatment which isn’t required because the dentist misdiagnosed your condition.
  • If any healthy teeth are damaged during a dental procedure.

Medical Negligence Statistics For The NHS Trust Covering Hampshire

We’ve provided the table below to demonstrate the number of claims made for medical negligence against the NHS trusts which provide services in the Hampshire area.  The data includes compensation payments made during 2017-18 and comes from this NHS document.

Healthcare ProviderClaims in 2017/2018Number of Incidents 2017/2018CNST Damages
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust425£4,339,392
Solent NHS Trust70£402,324
University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust7118£12,785,568

How To Make A No Win No Fee Claim

We know that the cost of hiring a personal injury lawyer can worry some clients. This is why our panel of expert medical negligence solicitors work on a no win no fee basis for any claim they agree to take on.

When using this type of agreement, you don’t have to pay anything up front for the claim to be started.  Also, as the name suggests, if the solicitor doesn’t win the claim, you don’t have to pay them at all.

The only time you’ll pay your solicitor is if they win your case and you’re awarded compensation.  In this case, a success fee (a maximum of 25% of the compensation) is deducted from the compensation to cover the solicitors work.

Hospitals Serving Hampshire

Our panel of expert medical negligence solicitors can help with claims against medical centres, dental practices, nursing homes, GP surgeries and hospitals.  They can cover the whole of Hampshire including Winchester, Andover, Lymington, Alton and Petersfield.  To help you further, we’ve provided a list of hospitals that serve Hampshire residents below:

  • Royal Hampshire County Hospital.
  • Southampton General Hospital.
  • Ravenswood House.
  • Fareham Community Hospital.
  • Queen Alexandra Hospital.
  • Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital.
  • BMI The Hampshire Clinic.
  • Nuffield Health Wessex Hospital.
  • BMI Sarum Road Hospital.

We could help you begin a Hampshire medical negligence claim for NHS negligence as well as against a private healthcare provider.

Talk To Our Team

Hopefully, now that you’ve read this guide, you’d like to talk to us to find out how we can help you begin your claim.  Remember, our panel of medical negligence solicitors can cover the Hampshire area so please get in touch by calling 0800 652 3087 today.  If you want us to call you, then please fill in our online form.

Helpful Information

Thanks for taking the time to read our guide offering advice on choosing between medical negligence solicitors in Hampshire and nationwide services. To help you further, we’ve provided some useful guides and resources below:

Royal Hampshire County Hospital
Romsey Road,
Winchester, SO22 5DG.
Web: www.hampshirehospitals.nhs.uk

Inspection Report – While the Royal Hampshire Hospital was found to be outstanding in the caring category, it was rated as “Requires Improvement” overall.

NHS England – Information from the NHS in England regarding their services, treatment options and their future plans.

Personal Injury Claims Calculator – A useful guide into what compensation can be awarded for different injuries.

GP Negligence Cases – This guide explains when and how you could claim clinical negligence.

Edited by LisM.