Any personal injury lawyer will tell you that a claimant has only 3 years to bring a claim to court. If it is not brought within this time, the claim is barred from being brought at court.
However, this time limit does not necessarily run from the time when the negligence claimed for actually occurred. The time actually runs from the date of the cause of the action or from the date of knowledge of the negligence, whichever is the later. In cases such as car crash claims, this distinction is not often important as those involved in the accident are usually aware of it as soon as it occurs. However, this can be a very important distinction in cases of medical negligence where you may be unaware of your doctor’s negligence for some time.
A case recently reported by the Medical Protection Society (source) proves that a claim can be made some 20 years after the medical negligence occurred.
In this case, a patient aged 15 years went to her GP complaining of right hip, groin and knee pain. She played a lot of netball but was not aware of any particular injury whilst playing the sport. The GP undertook a cursory examination of the patient and could find nothing in particular wrong, he therefore diagnosed that it was a muscle sprain injury as a result of netball participation and prescribed some cream to rub into the painful area.
The patient felt that the cream was not helping and continued to see her GP. However, the GP did not send the patient for any diagnostics and continued with the same management of the injury. Some months later, the patient informed her GP that she was now suffering with pain in her left hip and groin too. As she was still playing netball, the GP decided that it must be a similar muscle sprain injury and dealt with in the same manner as before.
The pain continued intermittently and again the patient revisited her GP. She was then prescribed a regular course of painkillers and referred to physiotherapy although the physiotherapy never actually took place.
For 20 years the patient continued to suffer with pain in both hips. She did not bother to go back to see her GP as she felt he would only recommend the same treatment as before. Eventually, she moved home and registered at a new GP practice. She told her GP about the hip pain she had suffered for 20 years and on reviewing her notes and discovering that no radiology had been performed, she was referred for x-rays. The x-rays confirmed that the patient had degenerative changes to both hip joints indicating a previous bilateral slipped upper femoral epiphysis and required a hip replacement for both joints.
A medical negligence claim was swiftly brought and, as the claim had been brought within 3 years of the date of knowledge that she had not been appropriately treated, the claimant was successful and received a significant sum to compensate her for the pain she had suffered for 20 years.
So, if you have suffered as a result of medical negligence occurring some time ago, you may still be able to bring a claim for compensation. If you think you may have a potential claim, please call The Injury Lawyers on 0800 634 7575 for further advice.
