Newcastle Hospital Medical Negligence Claims Guide – How To Claim Compensation Against Newcastle Hospital? – Calculate Amounts Payouts

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trusts Compensation Payouts Guide

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trusts Compensation Payouts Guide

This guide is going to explain when you could make a clinical negligence or medical negligence claim against Newcastle hospitals following a breach of their duty of care which led to you suffering an injury, becoming ill or your existing condition being made worse. We’ll look at Newcastle hospital compensation payouts and Newcastle hospital NHS trust compensation amounts by examining a couple of case studies from the national press. The examples provided are amongst the more extreme cases when, in reality, you could be eligible to seek compensation for any suffering caused by a medical professional due to their negligence.

For most patients, it’s more likely that your trip to a Newcastle hospital including the Royal Victoria Infirmary or the Freeman hospital in Newcastle will be comfortable, successful and you’ll have no reason to complain. However, there might be some cases where you’ve suffered because a medical professional failed to follow the right procedure, forgot to highlight the risks to you or acted negligently in another way which might mean you would like to consider beginning a claim.

If you’d like to use us to help you, then please call today. Our expert advisors are available on 0800 652 3087. They’ll offer free medical negligence claims advice, assess your claim for free, and, if they think your case is strong enough, could introduce you to one of our panel of medical negligence solicitors who work on a no win no fee basis to help make your personal injury claim.

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A Guide To Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust Compensation Claims

There are numerous acts of negligence which could lead to Newcastle hospital compensation payouts. We’ll provide examples of these throughout this guide.

Claims are often made against Newcastle Hospital NHS Trust, rather than the individual member of staff responsible. These claims can range from minor injuries to major medical blunders. These include a patient who claimed over £4 million because of a misdiagnosed brain haemorrhage. We’ll provide more detail on this claim later in the guide.

To ensure your claim is lodged within the medical negligence claims time limit, you should contact us as soon as possible. In general, you have 3 years to begin your claim. The sooner you get in touch the better though because your personal injury solicitor will require time to gather the correct evidence to support your claim. There are however exceptions to the times limit. Please contact us for further information regarding this aspect of your claim.

When you’ve read this guide and know what evidence is required, get in touch for a free assessment of your claim.

What Is Clinical Malpractice Or Negligence?

To examine whether you could begin a medical negligence claim against a Newcastle Hospital, please see our definition for medical negligence. The definition used by a medical negligence lawyer will be similar to this:

  • Medical negligence is where you’ve been treated, in a substandard manner, by a medical professional, which has caused you to become avoidably injured or unnecessarily ill. It could also have made your pre-existing condition worse.

Next, we’ll look at how medical negligence can happen in a hospital.

NHS Hospital Negligence

There are many different departments within a hospital and staff with many different levels of skill. However, whomever is treating you within the hospital will have a duty of care to keep you as safe as possible throughout your treatment. Some examples of hospital negligence could include:

  • Negligent injuries caused to a mother or baby during pregnancy, delivery or post-labour.
  • Suffering caused by a delay in treatment due a negligent misdiagnosis. An example could include a cancer patient who’s not diagnosed properly when it would have been expected for a doctor to be able to spot the signs clearly meaning they don’t receive treatment right away. This could lead to worse suffering and it could even mean the cancer becomes untreatable.
  • Illnesses caused by hospital superbugs such as MRSA leading the pneumonia. These can occur due to a lack of hygiene throughout the hospital. When your body is weakened by a superbug, you could contract dangerous illnesses such as pneumonia or sepsis.
  • Unnecessary injuries during surgery could also lead to a claim. This can include injuries caused by an error, suffering caused because items of equipment were left inside you or pain suffered because of an anaesthetic error.
  • Suffering caused by medication errors. If you’re prescribed the wrong medication, or it’s administered incorrectly by hospital staff, you could claim for any suffering caused.

These are examples of different hospital negligence which could lead to a claim. The range of hospital compensation payouts will be determined by the severity of your injury, the impact it had on you and how it might affect you in the future.

If you’d like to discuss hospital negligence, please get in touch.

The Newcastle Upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust Compensation Payouts

The table below shows how much compensation was paid by Newcastle Upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust in 2015/16 and 2017/18.

Damages/YearValue of PaymentsName of Hospital or NHS TrustNo. successful claims made agains hospital/trust
2017/18£13,817,612Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (The)105
2016/17£10,673,157Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (The)113

While the number of complaints fell slightly in the second period, the Newcastle hospital compensation amounts increased.

£4.46m Compensation For A Misdiagnosed Haemorrhage

The first case study we’re going to cover shows how a 41-year old woman was left unable to work for the rest of her life because of an undetected brain haemorrhage.

Following a severe headache, which caused the patient to collapse at home, she was diagnosed as having a virus. However, after returning home, she had more serious haemorrhage 2 weeks later and had to have lifesaving surgery.

The patient and her husband filed a claim for gross medical negligence against the GP who saw her in her home, Darlington Acute Hospitals Trust and Newcastle Upon Tyne NHS Trust.

Following an interim payment of £150,000, the patient and her husband pursued the claim and were finally awarded £4.46 million.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6337282/Nurse-left-with-a-10-minute-memory-wins-multi-million-pound-payout.html

£7.1m Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust Compensation Payouts In 2009 / 2010

In the period 2009/2010 over £22 million was paid out in medical negligence costs by hospital trusts in the Newcastle area.

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was the top contributor to that amount with payments of £7.1 million.

Source: www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/newcastle-hospitals-pay-out-22m-4428395

How To Make A Medical Negligence Claim Against Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust

It’s possible to make a claim for any number of injuries caused by medical negligence. They could happen at any different hospital or department including Freeman Hospital accident and emergency, the Royal Victoria’s antenatal clinic or the Freeman Hospital phlebotomy ward.

Wherever the negligence against you occurred, you could be entitled to compensation and so should consider a compensation claim. Compensation could be paid for the initial pain and suffering caused by your injuries. It could also help you make changes to your home or help with travelling costs incurred because of your injuries.

Our panel of medical negligence solicitors could help with any type of claim, including those requiring the most complex medical evidence.

Here’s how to start your claim:

  • Try to get copies of medical records from the hospital. These could show any assessments performed on you, the doctor’s diagnosis, the treatment you received, and any injuries sustained during treatment.
  • Next you might want to contact our team of medical negligence experts.
  • We’ll assess your claim, for free, with no obligation.
  • You’ll receive free advice about whether you could begin a claim.
  • We could match you with one of our panel of medical negligence solicitors to start your claim.

If a solicitor takes on your case, they’ll need to use an independent doctor to perform a medical assessment. These are used to provide a report which shows what injuries you sustained, what affect they had on you and if they’ll continue to affect you in the future.

The solicitor will then use other evidence, in conjunction with the report, to make your compensation claim. Any solicitor we match you with will work on a no win no fee basis.

Doctors We Work With In Newcastle

We always try to ensure you don’t travel too far for a medical assessment. We do this by having a panel of doctors across the UK. Here are some in the Newcastle area we could use:

Guy Stevenson
Churchill House,
Mosley Street,
Newcastle, NE1 1DE.

Mohammed Ahmed
Physiotherapy Matters,
Regent Centre,
Gosforth,
Newcastle, NE3 3LU.

Stephen Grant Charlesworth-Jones
The Spire Newcastle,
Jesmond,
Newcastle, NE2 3QE.

We have many other doctors in the Newcastle area so could send you to one of those if these aren’t local enough for you.

No Win No Fee Negligence Claims Against Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust

We understand that many people worry about the costs involved with hiring a solicitor to seek hospital compensation payouts. That’s why we only work with no win no fee solicitors. We believe that no win no fee enables more people to claim because the amount of stress involved is reduced as well as any financial risks.

No win no fee agreements (actually called CFA’s or Conditional Fee Agreements) are good because they explicitly state that:

  • You will not have to pay the solicitor to start the case.
  • There is nothing to pay your legal team if they don’t win you any compensation.
  • And it will also show the exact percentage of success fee paid if the case is won.

Success fees are a percentage of your compensation paid to the solicitor to cover their costs. They are deducted from the compensation automatically which is good because it means you won’t have to find the funds to pay it yourself. The rest of the compensation is then sent to you. As the success fee is clearly shown on the CFA, there are no surprises when your case is won about how much you’ll need to pay. Success fees, by law, are limited to 25% of your compensation.

Speak To Our Experts

Now that you’ve read this guide about claiming for Newcastle hospital compensation payouts, if you’d like to discuss making a claim today, there are a number of ways to get in touch:

  • Firstly, you could call 0800 652 3087 and speak directly with a specialist advisor.
  • Alternatively, you could fill in this online claim form. Once received, we’ll call you back at a convenient time.

Our phone lines are open 7 days a week, 24 hours day, so you can call at a time that suits you.

When you get in touch, we’ll assess your claim for free. This will allow you to ask any questions you might have. We’ll also provide free legal advice during our initial consultation. If you’re happy to proceed, and we think you’ve got a strong case, we could help you begin a claim by introducing you to our panel of no win no fee medical negligence solicitors who have up to 30 years’ experience.

References, Guides And Resources

Now you’ve reached the end of this guide, we have provided you with some more information in the form of guides, links and other external resources. If you require further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Care Quality Commission Report – The latest inspection report from the CQC for the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Royal Victoria Infirmary – This report covers the Royal Victoria Infirmary and was carried out in 2013.

Hospital Locator – A handy tool from the NHS which lets you find a hospital, GP surgery, dentists or care home in your area.

Misdiagnosis Claims – This guide explains when you might be able to sue a hospital for suffering caused by a misdiagnosis.

Surgery Claims – A guide which explains the different reasons why you might want to claim compensation against a hospital following surgical mistakes.

Brain Injury Claims – This guide shows how a medical negligence solicitor could help with complex claims involving brain injuries.

Written by Brett.

Edited by Charlotte.