Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at NHS staff – I think we can all appreciate that the NHS is stretched so very thin, and the nursing staff and emergency care teams are, I imagine, fighting one heck of an uphill battle! It isn’t their fault that things are so bad in the economy that we’re all suffering at the mercy of an underfunded public health system. But irrelevant of whether you’re blaming our dear government or the powers that be in the NHS, one thing remains; standards of care cannot fall below what is expected.
We get a lot of enquires from people who have been to A+E and had a bad experience. Like I said earlier, it’s not surprising! But when people are misdiagnosed or given incorrect treatment, and as a consequence the injured victim suffers further, there may be a claim for compensation.
It’s not an easy task to start or win a claim against the NHS. A lot of cases of misdiagnosis aren’t actually always the fault of the NHS staff. In the initial stages of an injury, it can be very hard to determine what is wrong. My understanding of x-rays is that excess swelling could hide a fracture; so it isn’t exactly easy to spot from the very first day. If you have only just started with sickness symptoms, it could take days of monitoring before an accurate diagnosis can be made. Medicine isn’t always an exact science.
If you are incorrectly treated and you suffer as a result, we have to question whether other options were available that didn’t carry the risks of the treatment. Was it a case of the treatment being needed right away just in case it was the correct treatment to administer? It isn’t always as clear as day.
A lot of these sorts of claims can come down to a small number of factors that can determine whether you can win or not, such as:
Evidence
As an example, if you were x-rayed and a fracture was missed, a second opinion from another professional could be sought as the x-rays will be on your medical file. If they spot a fracture, you have to question whether the first professional wasn’t using their eyes properly.
Appropriate Standard of Care
What would another professional have done? If several other professionals would unanimously agree that they would have taken a different course of action, then you could question the judgement of the person that originally treated you.
Were You Warned!
Were you warned and advised to take precautionary steps because a proper diagnosis was difficult to make? For example, if there was the possibility of a fracture in your ankle, where you provided with crutches and advised to none weight bare and return for another appointment once a better diagnosis could be made? Or where you told you would be fine, meaning you walked around with a limp and did further damage as you shouldn’t have been putting weight on a fracture?
Have You Suffered Further?
If you haven’t actually suffered as a result of a mistake by the NHS, you may be unable to claim. Claiming for personal injury involves a claim for the pain, suffering and loss of amenity caused. If there isn’t a loss, you can’t really expect to be able to make a claim.
There are a lot of things to consider. For specialist advice from our Medical Negligence Team here at The Injury Lawyers, call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 today!