Medical negligence Kingswood
Choosing a medical negligence lawyer can be a tricky task. Picking the right one though could have an impact on whether you win the claim and how much compensation you might receive. Therefore, this guide is going to provide information on what to look for if you’re trying to find medical negligence solicitors in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire.
If you’re ready to discuss making a medical negligence claim for clinical negligence suffered in Kingswood give our advisors a call today on 0800 652 3087. We have a panel of expert specialist medical negligence solicitors who have successfully worked on different medical negligence cases and have the ability and competence to work on yours.
If you’d rather find out more about beginning a claim, please continue reading this handy guide. against Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Choose A Section
- Top Tips For Getting The Right Solicitor For My Medical Claim
- Will I Need A Medical Claims Solicitor Close To Me?
- Will I Need A Personal Injury Medical Appointment?
- Are Online Reviews Reliable?
- Examples Of Negligence By A Medical Practitioner
- Negligence And Errors By A Surgeon
- Birth Injuries Such As Cerebral Palsy
- Hospital Negligence Claims
- Nursing/ Care Home Neglect
- Cancer Delays And Misdiagnosis
- Poor Medical Treatment By A GP
- Poor Medical Treatment By A Dentist
- Claims Against Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Kingswood, South Gloucestershire Medical Services
- Making A No Win No fee Claim
- Start Your Claim
- Where Could I Find Out More?
Top Tips For Getting The Right Solicitor For My Medical Claim
Before you start looking for the best medical negligence solicitor to help with your case, you should assess whether you could be eligible to claim or not. See if you can answer yes to the following 3 questions, if you can then a solicitor could offer you a no win no fee service.
- Did you receive negligent medical treatment from a medical professional (including cosmetic treatments) who was treating you?
- Were you injured, made ill or was your existing condition made worse because of that negligent treatment?
- And did the treatment happen within 3 years, which is the medical negligence claims time limit in the UK. (This may vary please call for more information).
If the above are all true then you could start looking for a personal injury lawyer by asking friends for advice, reading reviews or asking family members to recommend a solicitor for you. We’ll give you advice throughout this guide which will help you make an informed decision when it comes to choosing the right medical negligence solicitor for your case.
Alternatively, instead of searching for the solicitor yourself, you could speak with one of specialists who can offer free legal advice and, if you have a strong case, could introduce you to one of our panel of expert medical negligence solicitors who offer no win no fee claims.
Will I Need A Medical Claims Solicitor Close To Me?
You might think, “I need to use medical negligence solicitors in my area”, but in this day and age, there’s no need to do so. In fact, you could limit your options by taking this approach.
You don’t need to meet face to face these days because of modern communication methods. Email and telephone are sufficient ways to handle a claim which means the office location doesn’t matter.
Instead of searching locally, we would recommend you search for a solicitor who specialises in medical negligence claims and has years of experience doing so. They should also be able to demonstrate cases they’ve taken on recently which were similar to your own.
Will I Need A Personal Injury Medical Appointment?
In most medical negligence claims, you’ll need to undergo a medical assessment to check the extent of your injuries. To ensure you don’t have to travel too far, we use a panel of doctors and medical specialists across the UK including in Kingswood and the surrounding area. Here’s a sample of those we could use:
Louise Whyte
Fitness First,
Kingswood,
Bristol, BS15 9LA.
Mike Glassborow
17 Cleeve Wood Road,
Bristol, BS16 2SF.
Are Online Reviews Reliable?
Many people look at medical negligence solicitor reviews when deciding which one to use for their claim. We think they are helpful to a point and provide information about the professionalism of the solicitor’s firm, the number of updates the client received throughout the claim and whether they were happy with the compensation they received.
However, you should still pick up the phone and discuss your claim with a solicitor you’re considering. For instance, they could tell you what they propose to claim for, how they’ll manage your claim and how long they expect the claim to take. This is the type of information you probably won’t find within reviews.
Examples Of Negligence By A Medical Practitioner
Over the next part of this guide, we’re going to provide examples of negligent acts which could lead to a personal injury claim. While it’s not a conclusive list, it should give you an idea of the sort of errors and mistakes which could mean you’re entitled to compensation.
Negligence And Errors By A Surgeon
Surgeons carry out very complex operations which may carry an element of risk with them. They will usually explain these risks to the patient and ask for a consent form to be signed. This doesn’t stop a compensation claim being made though if the patient is avoidably injured during surgery because of a negligent act.
Some examples of surgical negligence which might lead to a claim include:
- Injuries to internal organs that could have been prevented.
- Pain suffered because the anaesthetic wore off to early during surgery.
- Amputation of the entirely wrong limb due to misinterpretation of medical records.
- Or items of surgical equipment being left inside the patient.
Birth Injuries Such As Cerebral Palsy
The delivery of a new baby should be a happy time for the parents and family of the child, but it can be marred if either mother or baby are injured because of a mistake or negligent act during the delivery.
There are some injuries which are unavoidable, that happen and could not have been prevented but if it is proven that correct procedures are not followed which leads to a breach in the duty of care owed to a patient and a patient is unnecessarily harmed there may be grounds to pursue a claim for damages.
If you or your child have been negligently injured during pregnancy, delivery or post-birth, please get in touch so we can assess whether we could help you claim or not.
Hospital Negligence Claims
It is vital that at all times hospital staff ensure that their patients are safe as possible and also in a safe environment. All medical staff have a duty of care to ensure patients are not put in harms way and receive a minimum standard of care. Under no circumstances should a patient be subject to an avoidable injury, preventable illness or have their current condition worsened due to substandard treatment.
In cases where staff fail to follow the correct procedures during treatment, make a mistake, use faulty equipment or react incorrectly when something goes wrong, then the patient could be harmed due to negligence.
Examples of hospital negligence could include:
- Becoming ill in hospital because of super bugs like MRSA due to poor hygiene.
- Negligent surgical injuries.
- Being made ill because the wrong medicine was administered.
- Or suffering caused by a delay in treatment due to a negligent misdiagnosis.
Our panel of expert medical negligence solicitors can cover the Kingswood area there for can assist with claims against Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Nursing/ Care Home Neglect
Care homes have a duty of care towards their patients and have health and safety procedures designed to make each patient as safe and as comfortable as possible during their care.
Management will provide staff with training on these procedures but if they are not followed and they breach their care of duty, and a patient suffers unnecessarily, then you could claim on behalf of your loved one if they are unable to make a claim themselves. For instance:
- If a patient is injured during a fall because they were lifted by untrained staff.
- If they suffer pain from bed sores because they were not moved regularly enough.
- If they suffer through any form of abuse.
- Or if they become ill because their prescribed medicine was not dispensed correctly.
Cancer Delays And Misdiagnosis
Medical professionals will tell you that the sooner cancer is spotted, in many types of cancer, the better your chances of a full recovery. Therefore, any delay in beginning treatment could mean that the cancer advances too far to be treatable or it requires a more aggressive form of treatment.
If your treatment has been delayed because a doctor failed to spot the cancer when they had the chance to do so or they diagnosed it as something else, then you may be able to make a claim if the delay in treatment caused you to suffer more than necessary.
Poor Medical Treatment By A GP
Many doctor’s surgeries are running at full capacity which means some GP’s may be stretched to their limits. However, in many cases, they still manage to diagnose the problem, prescribe a treatment or refer the patient elsewhere for tests in the first short appointment.
However if the GP fails to get the diagnosis right it could cause the patient to suffer more than they needed to. Any delay in treatment because of the wrong diagnosis or a late diagnosis (i.e. you had to revisit the GP on more than one occasion), could mean that your condition was allowed to worsen. If it can be proven by a medical negligence solicitor that the delay in diagnosis was due to doctor error then GP negligence may have occurred. Please get in touch to discuss how we could assist you and assess if you are eligible to pursue a claim.
Poor Medical Treatment By A Dentist
When you visit a dentist, they’re bound by a duty of care to ensure your safety while receiving treatment or undergoing a routine check-up. This means they should use the correct equipment at all times, ensure the equipment is well maintained and not faulty and to follow the correct procedures throughout your treatment. If they fail to do so, and they breach their duty of care which leads to a negligent action causing unnecessary harm the grounds for a medical negligence claim maybe there.
Types of dental negligence which could lead to a claim may include:
- Injuries to healthy teeth while other teeth were being treated or removed.
- Pain suffered during treatment because the anaesthetic was not applied properly.
- Extraction of incorrect tooth.
Claims Against Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The table below demonstrates how many claims for medical negligence were made against the NHS trusts in and around Kingswood.
| Healthcare Provider | Claims in 2017/2018 | Number of Incidents 2017/2018 | CNST Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Bristol NHS Trust | 61 | 25 | £16,771,052 |
| University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust | 49 | * | £8,129,811 |
It shows how much compensation was claimed for NHS negligence (source) but doesn’t include private healthcare claims.
Kingswood, South Gloucestershire Medical Services
As our panel of medical negligence solicitors can cover the Kingswood area, we’ve decided to add a list of hospitals and medical facilities in the area for your reference.
- Cossham Hospital.
- Emersons Green NHS Treatment Centre.
- Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre.
- Southmead Hospital.
- Bristol Royal Infirmary.
- Nuffield Health, The Chesterfield Hospital.
- Litfield House Medical Centre.
Making A No Win No Fee Claim
We understand that some people are put off from making allegations of negligence or poor medical treatment because of the cost of hiring a personal injury solicitor. That’s why our panel of expert medical negligence solicitors all offer a no win no fee service for any claim they help with.
This means that:
- There’s no up-front fee required for the case to begin.
- You don’t pay a penny to your solicitor if the solicitor fails to win compensation.
- You won’t need to find the funds to pay your solicitor if they do win as they take their success fee directly from the compensation (maximum 25%).
Using no win no fee reduces any financial risk from making a claim which means it much less stressful.
Start Your Claim
If you’re now ready to discuss how we could help you begin a claim, then you can get in touch by calling 0800 652 3087 and speaking with a specialist right away. If you would rather we call you back, at a convenient time, then you can fill in this claims form.
Where Could I Find Out More?
Now that you’ve come to the end of this guide about finding medical negligence solicitors in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, we’ve added some external resources and some useful guides below:
Cossham Hospital,
Lodge Road,
Kingswood,
Bristol, BS15 1LF.
Web: www.gloshospitals.nhs.uk
Inspection Report – The last inspection report rated Cossham hospital as good overall.
Care Homes – Information about care homes in the South Gloucestershire County Council region.
Cerebral Palsy Claims – A guide to when patients could claim for negligence that led to cerebral palsy.
Cancer Claims – This guide explains when medical + clinical negligence claims could be made for suffering caused by cancer delays.
Edited by LisM.