Commercial Services

• Commercial Litigation
• Employment for Employers
• Debt Recovery

Individual Services

• PI – Funding Your Claim
• PI – Have you got a Claim
• PI – JSB Guidelines of Damages
• Clinical Negligence
• Conveyancing
• Wills
• Crime

Clinical Negligence

1. Do I have a claim?

Providing we can establish at least some fault against the hospital or Doctor, your claim should be successful. This however will have to be confirmed by a written medical opinion and there has to be confirmation that there has been some additional harm caused by the negligence.

2. Will it cost me anything?

You can apply for legal funding (Legal aid) if your case has a substantial value, reasonable prospects of success and you are financially eligible. In the absence of this we do operate no win no fee arrangements in suitable cases and can discuss this with you in more detail.

3. How much will I get?

Basically you should be compensated for all losses caused by the other party's negligence which may include your injuries, past losses including earnings, damage to property and other expenses, and any of these losses that are likely to continue into the future.

4. How long will it take?

At best about 12 months to finish an injury claim completely although this may vary and could be longer if your injuries are more serious or the other party fails to co-operate and court proceedings have to be issued.

5. Am I a victim of clinical negligence?

It is important to understand that clinical negligence, as defined by the law, is a very specific thing. You may have had an unfortunate experience during your healthcare, but this does not necessarily mean you have grounds for a legal claim. Things go wrong during medical treatment for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, a patient has to accept that the treatment he or she has undergone may lead to complications without anyone having done anything wrong. On other occasions, however, a patient may suffer injuries that are a direct result of an identifiable clinician making an identifiable mistake in his or her care. We tend to refer to this kind of mistake as "clinical negligence". In a legal context, it can sometimes take many years - and the assistance of a number of senior doctors and lawyers - to argue about whether a given incident was an instance of clinical negligence or not. A solicitor will not be able to tell you whether you have suffered as a result of clinical negligence or not; however, he or she should be able to give you a preliminary view about whether you have a clinical negligence claim which is, at least, worth investigating.

6. Is there any point in pursuing a claim? Don't doctors just stick up for each other?

Because the only way to make a case for a successful clinical negligence claim is with the support of medical experts, potential clients often fear that the experts to whom we turn will not act impartially, and will try to get their colleagues “off the hook”. The best we can advise you against this to know that you can trust your experts is that we have been working with many of the experts we use for many years, and know that they will give honest advice: if they think you have a claim, they will say so (although, equally, they will not advise us to pursue a case that does not, in their opinion, have a realistic basis). This is one of the reasons why we always put a maximum of effort into selecting absolutely the right expert for each case.

7. Can I pursue a clinical negligence claim on behalf of my child?

Yes. Any child under 18 must have an adult representative, who is known as their "litigation friend". This is an important responsibility: you must make all the necessary decisions in relation to the case, and must always act in the child's best interests. In a claim on behalf of a child, any "out-of-court" settlement that is reached can only be accepted with the Court's approval.

8. Can I pursue a clinical negligence claim on behalf of a relative who has died during - or as a result of - medical treatment?

Yes, as long as you were a close relative. Claims involving fatalities are for "bereavement damages" (i.e. compensation for the loss of a loved one) which, as a matter of law, may only be claimed by a very limited category of people: the spouse of the deceased or, if the deceased was a child, his or her parents. It is also possible to claim for loss of financial support from the deceased (a "dependency" claim). Such damages are available to a wider group of people - including children, siblings, and "common-law" partners, as well as parents and spouses - but only if you can show that you were dependent on the deceased for part or all of your income. As you can see, this is quite a complicated area of the law, but we will happy to talk you through it in detail: please feel free to contact us.