Can I Claim for Medical Negligence from My GPs Failed Diagnosis?

What areas does breach of duty of care by a doctor cover?

You may be surprised to learn that medical negligence can occur for a variety of reasons which do not necessarily mean you received an injury or further illness.

Supposing you went to see your doctor, worried by a persistent pain or other difficulty? Or maybe it was your child that you took to be looked at. Your GP dismissed your problem after one examination and said you should have no concern. He may have prescribed some medication such as painkillers or antibiotics. Nothing could have been further from your mind than clinical negligence; you trusted your doctor and you believed, as most of us do, he had the experience and medical know-how to help you feel better.

You returned to your surgery a week later, your symptoms may have not worsened but neither have they improved. Your doctor took down some more information and then did another examination. He did not feel your condition was serious enough to refer you to a consultant or other specialist.

Well, you eventually found things became so bad that you landed in casualty one day with a serious complication; you had to be admitted to hospital and lost income.

A lack of diagnosis or an incorrect one both form a case of 'medical negligence' and you may be able to claim compensation for any financial losses caused by this or its long term effects.

Doctors may also be in breach of duty for failure to warn of risks in treatment, failure to obtain proper consent to treatment, medication errors, careless surgical procedures, delayed referral to specialists. Negligence can also arise out of system errors in the hospital where the treatment took place.

All doctors are regulated and registered with the General Medical Council ( http://www.gmc-uk.org). He is required by Law by this governing body to inform a patient when a treatment has gone wrong. For a medical negligence solicitor to succeed in making a claim on your behalf he will need to prove, through the evidence of medical experts qualified in the speciality concerned, that it was more probable than not that:

1. There were serious errors in your medical treatment which a competent doctor should not have made.

2. The errors caused, or exacerbated, the injury or illness you are suffering as a result.

Talk with a specialisted medical negligence solicitor and get the advice you need in order to make that compensation claim.


------

Bonallack & Bishop are specialist Medical Negligence Solicitors. If you need advice on your compensation claim contact one of their lawyers today. Tim Bishop is senior partner at the firm, responsible for all major strategic decisions. He has grown the firm by 1000% in 13 years and sees himself as a businessman who owns a law firm.