The core elements of a clinical negligence claim

On behalf of Attwaters Jameson Hill posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2017

Healthcare in the UK is some of the best on offer anywhere in the world, and developments in modern medicine mean that there are effective treatments on offer to more patients than ever before. However, problems can and do arise.

Generally, you need to make a claim within three years of the treatment or care regarded as negligent, or the date when you could reasonably have known that the consequences were due to this.To be able to make a successful claim, you must be able to prove several things:

Negligence – you will need to be able to demonstrate that a breach of the duty of care has taken place, and the standard of care that you received fell below that of a reasonably competent health care professional in that specific area of medicine.
Causation – it’s not sufficient to prove that someone did something wrong, you must be able to show that you have suffered a physical or mental injury as a direct result of the negligent action. Injuries can arise directly from the treatment you received, failure to make a recovery from a medical condition, or from an existing medical condition that has been made more serious.Sometimes it can be difficult to know if the harm you have suffered has been caused directly by the medical negligence, or as a consequence of an underlying disease or illness.

Your next step

Our Medical Negligence team are on hand to talk about your healthcare issues and answer your questions. So, if you’d like a confidential discussion, please call us on 0203 468 3340, or you can visit our website attwatersjamesonhill.co.uk and complete our online contact form.

The core elements of a clinical negligence claim

Your next step

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