We will be able to advise you on whether you may have a claim for clinical negligence, however this section will help you to understand what is required in making a claim – and whether you wish to seek financial compensation or just make a complaint.
Seeking financial compensation
Legal action is about making a claim for financial compensation for the injury that you have suffered. If you do not want to claim compensation then it may be more appropriate to use the complaints procedure. Download our Information Sheet on ‘How to complain about a healthcare professional’ for more details.
To bring a claim you have to show two things:-
- That your treatment was substandard, and
- That the substandard treatment has caused you significant injury.
You cannot automatically claim compensation simply because something has gone wrong. There are complications which happen sometimes that a court would not think were negligent.
Initial Investigation of a Claim
There are a number of steps we follow to fully investigate a claim:-
- We apply for copies of your medical records. Some people do apply for their records themselves. Download our information sheet ‘How to access your medical records’ for more information.
- We make sure that we have all the relevant records and get these properly sorted and numbered.
- We prepare a statement which explains what happened to you.
- We ask an independent medical expert to review your treatment. Sometimes the expert needs to see you and sometimes they can report without seeing you.
- In some cases we can advise on the strength of your case with one medical report. In other cases we need to get more than one medical report before we can advise you on how strong your case is.
- If your case can proceed we will then put together details of your claim for financial loss and expense and your injuries.
- We will then put your case to the defendants to see if they will admit that the treatment was substandard and has injured you.
How you can help
If you have to pay for something because of what has happened it is important that you keep a record of it (and preferably a receipt), as this will help to prove that expense has been incurred.
It also helps if you can keep a diary of what happens in relation to medical treatment and how you feel about what is happening.
If you have obtained copies of your medical records please do not write on them or mark them in any way.
