Medical Negligence Claims

Making a claim against a GP

If you have suffered as a result of negligence on the part of your General Practitioner (GP), you may be able to make a medical negligence compensation claim.

In the UK our NHS system is generally very good, but occasionally mistakes are made. Some GPs can see over 100 patients in a week and as a result are only able to spend a few minutes with each one.

Many mistakes do not have serious consequences, but in some cases, unfortunately, the results can be serious.

We have experience of dealing with a variety of medical negligence cases. The most common types of claims against GPs are:

• Misdiagnosis – some serious illnesses can have similar symptoms to less serious ones and can therefore be incorrectly diagnosed. For example, meningitis is sometimes misdiagnosed as flu due to the common symptoms that both illnesses share in the early stages.
• Failure to diagnose
• Delayed treatment or failure to treat
• Incorrect treatment
• Failure to refer to a specialist
• Prescription errors – mistakes are sometimes made when prescribing drugs and people can be given inappropriate medicines. Another common problem is when serious side effects of drugs are not made clear to patients.

If I claim against my GP will if affect my future care?

Your GP does not have the right to refuse to treat you simply because you have brought a claim against them, although in practice you may feel more comfortable in seeking an alternative health care provider. This can be a simple process of changing practice or simply seeing a different doctor within the same practice.

What can I claim?

The value of your claim will depend on a number of factors including:

• The nature of the injury or illness
• Whether you recover fully from the injury or illness or if it has a long term effect on your health and wellbeing
• The amount of any losses you incur as a result of the injury

You can claim compensation for the following things if they are a result of your injury:

• Pain, suffering and loss of amenity
• Loss of earnings
• Medical and nursing care costs
• Special equipment needed to carry out daily activities and any costs involved in adapting your home
• Other expenses incurred as a result of your injury, for example, travel expenses incurred whilst receiving medical treatment.

We understand that deciding to make a claim against your GP may be difficult. Contact us to speak to one of our specialist lawyers in total confidence and they will discuss the details of your claim.