A recent report showed that during 2011, the General Medical Council (GMC) the organisation that manage, register, and licenses doctors practicing medicine in the UK, received a total of 8,781 complaints from patients
The three most commonly reported types of complaint were related to:
- concerns with investigations and treatment, such as failure to diagnose or prescribing inappropriate medications
- problems with communication – such as not providing appropriate information or not responding to people’s concerns
- perceived lack of respect for the patient – such as being rude or dishonest
We put our health and our lives in the hands of the experts and expect a service to be up to standards.
The report also shows that of the above total complaints 2,330 lead to a full investigation into the allegations of the complaints and lead to 65 cases of the Doctors being ‘struck off’
But what happens when you have been on the receiving end of this poor service?
There are two important aspects to making a claim for the medical expert’s negligence
- There must be negligence (i.e. failing to diagnose, failing to adequately treat, injury caused by lack of care)
- There must be an injury caused by the negligence (i.e. further suffering due to the failure to treat etc.)
Whilst a case of a medical professional being rude or dishonest, or providing insufficient advice, may be grounds for a complaint and to be sympathised with; but it is not necessarily negligence so a claim may be difficult to bring against them. Or if the failure to diagnose something hasn’t actually caused any further suffering, there may not be an official injury as a result of the negligence to claim for.
But when your suffering is due to the negligence of an expert, it should not go unnoticed, and you may be owed thousands of pounds in compensation.
The first steps you should take if you feel that the doctor’s negligence has caused your injuries would be to write a letter of complaint to the surgery/ hospital in question, detailing what you feel has been done wrong, what the result of this is, and requesting the matter is investigated and you are provided with an outcome.
The response to the letter of complaint, whatever the outcome, can be used as evidence to support a claim for medical negligence and show that you have given the doctors the opportunity to investigate the matter before any legal proceedings are entered into.
You should also contact The Injury Lawyers today on 0800 634 75 75 for free no obligatory legal advice and to pursue a claim on our Genuine No Win, No Fee basis and be awarded 100% of the compensation you are entitled to for your pain and suffering caused by the medical experts.
