Can You Claim For The Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer?

This guide will explain the criteria of eligibility that must be met to make a medical negligence claim following a doctor’s failure to diagnose lung cancer. Medical professionals, such as doctors, have a duty to provide you with the correct standard of care. If they fail to meet this standard, you could be caused avoidable harm, for which you may be eligible to make a medical negligence claim.

This guide will explain how medical errors could lead to the misdiagnosis of cancer. Moreover, we will examine how much compensation you could be eligible to receive for the harm caused by medical negligence.

Failure to diagnose lung cancer guide

Please contact our team of advisors today. They could assess your case and offer insight into liability. If they find that your claim could be valid, they may connect you with a medical negligence solicitor from our panel who has experience handling misdiagnosis claims. Furthermore, read on to learn about the benefits of entering into a No Win No Fee agreement.

To begin your lung cancer negligence claim, please get in touch with us today by doing one of the following:

Call our helpline on 0800 652 3087
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Select A Section

What Is The Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer?
Could A Doctor Have Diagnosed Your Lung Cancer Earlier?
Are You Eligible To Claim For Diagnostic Errors?
When Can You Claim For The Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer
Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer Compensation Settlements
Get Help With Your Claim

What Is The Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer?

Lung cancer is a disease that, if left untreated, can worsen over time. Therefore, it is important to receive a diagnosis as soon as possible to begin treatment.

The misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose lung cancer means that more time will pass without you receiving the treatment you require. This could cause avoidable pain and suffering and a worsened prognosis.

Furthermore, lung cancer could also spread to other areas of the body. Cancer Research UK states that the most common areas for lung cancer to spread are:

Other parts of the lung or the other lung
Nearby lymph nodes – if the cancer spreads to the lymph nodes in your neck, this could put pressure on the spinal cord and cause damage
Brain
Bones
Liver
The adrenal glands

Additionally, you may have experienced emotional distress because of the avoidable harm you experienced, such as anxiety or depression. Contact our team of advisors to discuss the harm that misdiagnosis has caused you.

Could A Doctor Have Diagnosed Your Lung Cancer Earlier?

The NHS provides information regarding the symptoms of lung cancer. They state that lung cancer in its early stages doesn’t usually show any symptoms. Symptoms often develop as lung cancer progresses. Therefore, it may be difficult to determine whether lung cancer could have been diagnosed earlier.

However, if you have proof that a medical professional did not provide the correct standard of care, which caused their failure to diagnose your lung cancer earlier, this would be crucial evidence to support a claim.

Lung Cancer Statistics

Here are some lung cancer statistics from the NHS:

Around 47,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer each year in the UK.
In the UK, more than 4 out of 10 people diagnosed with lung cancer are aged 75 or older.
Smoking is the cause of about 72% of lung cancer cases. However, not all lung cancer sufferers are smokers or former smokers.
Sadly only about 1 in 3 people who receive a lung cancer diagnosis live beyond a year.
And only about 1 in 20 people diagnosed with lung cancer live beyond ten years.

Are You Eligible To Claim For Diagnostic Errors?

Under the following circumstances, you can claim compensation for failure to diagnose lung cancer:

A medical professional that treated you owed you a duty of care.
They breached this duty of care by not providing the correct standard of care.
Consequently, the failure to diagnose you caused you avoidable harm.

Moreover, you must start your medical negligence claim within the time limits outlined by the Limitation Act 1980. You generally have three years to begin your claim from the day that the medical negligence took place or from the day you linked the avoidable harm to negligence.

Contact our advisors for information regarding exceptions to these time limits. If you have a valid claim, you could be connected with a lawyer from our panel.

When Can You Claim For The Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer?

Not all instances of misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose a disease are caused by a medical professional not providing the correct standard of care. For example, test results could be inconclusive, preventing you from being diagnosed.

The following errors could lead to the failure to diagnose lung cancer:

After hearing a patient’s symptoms, a GP does not suggest any further action, such as tests. This could cause avoidable harm and could be an example of GP negligence.
A hospital could make an administrative error which means that the doctor receives the wrong patient’s test results.
A hospital may miss clear test results indicating lung cancer. Therefore, hospital negligence could cause a delay in the patient receiving treatment.
Sadly a patient may die a wrongful death because of lung cancer misdiagnosis. In this case, the patient’s family could be eligible to claim compensation on their behalf if the misdiagnosis was caused by medical negligence.

Failure To Diagnose Lung Cancer Compensation Settlements

If your medical negligence claim is successful, there are two potential heads of claim you could receive, which are called general and special damages.

General damages – compensate you for the physical and mental pain and suffering that the medical negligence caused.
Special damages – compensate you for any financial losses that the avoidable harm caused you to suffer.

In the table below, we have used the Judicial College guidelines (JCG) to provide general damage figures for different injuries. Medical negligence solicitors use this document to assist them when valuing payouts for general damages.

Injury	Compensation Bracket	Notes
Moderately Severe Injury Resulting from Brain Damage	£219,070 to £282,010	There will be a need for constant care as the person will be very seriously disabled.
Moderate Injury Resulting from Brain Damage (i)	£150,110 to £219,070	There will be no prospects of employment for the person. There will be a moderate to severe intellectual deficit.
Moderate Injury Resulting from Brain Damage (ii)	£90,720 to £150,110	The ability to work will be completely removed or greatly reduced. There will be a modest to moderate intellectual deficit.
Less Severe Injury Resulting from Brain Damage	£15,320 to £43,060	The person will be able to return to work and take part in normal social activities, as they have made a good recovery. However, all normal functions may not have been restored.
Severe Back Injury (i)	£91,090 to £160,980	The person will suffer damage to the spinal cord and nerve roots. This will lead to a combination of very serious consequences.
Lung Injury (a)	£100,670 to £135,920	The person is younger with serious disability. The condition has a probability of progressively worsening over time, causing premature death.
Lung Injury (b)	£70,030 to £97,330	Lung cancer, which causes severe pain and affects the person's quality of life.
Severe Psychiatric Damage	£54,830 to £115,730	There will be marked problems coping with work, education and daily life. The prognosis will be very poor.
Moderately Severe Psychiatric Damage	£19,070 to £54,830	There will be significant problems coping with work, education and daily life. However, the prognosis will be more optimistic.
Mental Anguish	£4,670	The person will fear a reduction in their life expectancy or impending death.

Please be aware that the amounts in this table are not an exact representation of what you will receive, as each case is determined by its unique factors.

Examples of special damages you could claim include the following:

Medical expenses
Travel costs, for example, to and from medical appointments
Reimbursement for loss of income
Reimbursement for care costs

However, you must provide evidence of financial losses resulting from the avoidable harm, such as travel tickets, payslips and bank records.

Please contact our advisors for help valuing your claim. They can advise you on the use of a medical negligence compensation calculator.

Get Help With Your Claim

We can advise you on making a compensation claim for a failure to diagnose lung cancer. This must have been caused by a medical professional’s failure to provide the correct standard of care and has resulted in you sustaining avoidable harm.

When entering into a No Win No Fee agreement with a solicitor, you will not pay for their services if your claim is unsuccessful. Therefore, they will not ask you to make any upfront or ongoing payments for their services.

Although, if your claim is successful, your solicitor could take a small, previously agreed, percentage of the compensation, known as a ‘success fee’. The law caps this amount.

To begin your claim for a lung cancer misdiagnosis, please get in touch with us today: