As you may have seen or heard, some of the recommendations for changes in regulation to the cosmetic surgery industry have been released. This review, commissioned by the department of health in the wake of the PIP breast implant scandal, has investigated in to how best to protect patients who chose to undergo cosmetic procedures, something that is incredibly popular in this day and age.

The Cosmetic Surgery industry is a very lucrative business and is forecast to be worth about £3.6bn by 2015. The overall feeling I get from this review is that the attitude to cosmetic surgery needs to, and is going to, have to change with several comments referencing that getting such invasive treatment appears to be as normal as buying “double glazing” or walking in to have your hair done at a hairdressers with Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director for England, describing the situation as “bizarre”.
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Abdominoplasty, commonly referred to as a tummy tuck, is a cosmetic procedure in which excess skin and fat is removed to give the patient a more desirable and flatter stomach. This procedure is often sought after pregnancy or extreme weight loss and helps people regain confidence in showing their body whether that be on the beach or beneath their suit at work.

A tummy tuck involves a surgeon cutting above the pubic line and belly button and removing the skin and fat. The muscles are then stitched together and the belly button repositioned or completely replaced. Although quite a quick procedure, after care can be intense with stays of a couple of days in hospital been required.

If the procedure is performed well, the results can be fantastic and can make the patient feel an awful lot happier about their appearance. However, unfortunately if the surgery or part of the surgery is performed negligently, the results can be physically and emotionally scarring.
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If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you or someone you know has slipped over in a supermarket. I’m sorry if this is the case, but I’d encourage you to read on because I need to tell you something very important that could be the making or breaking of your claim for compensation.

In these sorts of cases, evidence can be everything. By law, a supermarket is liable to compensate someone who has slipped and fallen in their premises if they have breached the Occupiers Liability Act. This important piece of legislation stipulates that the occupier of a premises has an important duty to make their premises as safe as they reasonably can.

To prevent a slipping hazard as reasonably as possible, the supermarket should have a system or inspection and maintenance to look out for and clear away any hazards on the floor or place wet floor signs or cordons in the area until a hazard can be cleared away. What could be classed as reasonable is open to interpretation – if it’s a really busy Saturday afternoon, then a half hourly or hourly inspection may be classed as reasonable. In the early hours of the morning where there are far less customers, it may be less.
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Orthopaedic surgery is to attempt to correct problems that arise in the skeleton and its attachments such as the ligaments and the tendons. Orthopaedic surgeons will perform a wide range of surgical procedures including hand reconstructions, spinal fusions, joint replacements etc. Much of the work of an orthopaedic surgeon involves adding foreign material to the body in the form of screws, wires, pins etc. This does have risks in itself as there is no guarantee that the body will react to the foreign body in a positive way – although it has proved to be successful with many operations.

As with any surgical procedure, there are many inherent risks are involved. Your surgeon should always explain the risks prior to agreeing to undertake a surgical procedure. The idea is that a patient is always making a fully informed decision. It is the patient’s decision whether or not to have the surgery. The patient should be made fully aware of the potential consequences of not having the surgery and the potential consequences or side effects of having the surgery. A failure to fully inform the patient of risks could leave the practice (whether it be a private clinic or a NHS clinic) open for a claim in medical negligence.

General risks with orthopaedic surgery include excessive bleeding, infection, allergic reactions etc. Some more specific risks include inflammation in the part of the body where foreign materials (screws, pins etc) are inserted. There may also be a risk of nerve damage or damage to the spinal cord. The risks will vary depending upon the precise operation being undertaken.
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Spinal Surgery Claims come under the field of medical negligence which is a specialised area of personal injury law. It is imperative that you speak to a firm with experience in dealing with similar medical negligence matters. By its very nature, spinal surgery is dangerous; it is probably one of the most dangerous types of surgery there is.

Spinal surgeons are extremely experienced and highly skilled individuals. However, should something go wrong, the potential effects can be devastating. The injuries are likely to be life changing, with individuals requiring constant care and attention that could last for the rest of their life.
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We have decades of experience in dealing with all varieties of compensation claims. When it comes to clinical negligence and cosmetic surgery negligence, our specialist teams are more than equipped to fight for your rights to claim compensation when something doesn’t go as you imagined it would. We are also one of the leading law firms who are fighting for hundreds of women for PIP breast implant compensation.

So here is a quick article about making a cosmetic surgery claim.

Do You Have a Claim?

It’s probably best for us to assess this on the phone, so you can give us a call right now on 0800 634 75 75 and we will look in to it for you. But for general guidance, to win a cosmetic surgery compensation claim we need to commonly prove one of two things:
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There are numerous workplace regulations that employers must abide by. They are important, and they are there to prevent employees from being injured in the workplace. An employer must do all they reasonably can to prevent an employee from slipping, tripping, or falling in the workplace. This is covered by the Workplace Health Safety and Welfare Regulations 1992.

These important regulations stipulate that all traffic routes in the workplace should be free of any articles or substances that could cause a slip, trip, or fall accident. So liquid should not be allowed to accumulate on the floor, and items such as boxes should be allowed to be left on the floor either. Employers should have inspection and maintenance regimes that can prevent as much as possible something from becoming a hazard on the floor. Policies should be in place to train and instruct employees not to inadvertently create a hazard by, for example, leaving boxes in a traffic route in a warehouse.
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Motorways can be dangerous places – for the obvious reasons that there are speeding cars in three separate lanes. You tend to get a lot of ‘idiot drivers‘ as well who take the law in to their own hands when it comes to speed, and have no recollection of that magical little switch on the side of the steering wheel that sends out signals to other drivers that you are indicating to change lanes!

So we as expert personal injury lawyers end up taking on a lot of claims for compensation caused by motorway accidents. The absolute classic one is the situation when traffic slows down quickly. Apparently the car behind always ends up braking just that little bit harder than the one in front; so you end up with a line of cars all braking more than each other until the vehicles further at the back are slamming on to the extent that one of them may fail to stop.
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Well, actually its 110% compensation for you! I’ll explain how that works:

April 2013 saw the biggest shake-up to the personal injury claiming world in its entire history. For a long time now we have been able to recover all of our legal fees directly from the other side, meaning you keep all 100% of your payout. Sadly the government in their infinite wisdom decided to change the rules…

The rule changes mean that we are no longer allowed to recover a success fee or ATE (After The Event) insurance premium as part of the fees from the opponent. The success fee is a fee that reflects the risk of the case, as we ultimately take on many claims on a No Win, No Fee and do not get paid as the other side can successfully defend them. The ATE is there to protect you from having to pay your own disbursements if you can’t recover them or your opponents costs.
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On April 1^st 2013, there was a huge shake-up of the personal injury claiming system that has left almost all victims facing up to 25% of their compensation being taken by their solicitor for a claim from 1^st April onwards. The government decided that lawyers should no longer be able to recover all of their fees from the other side, meaning that lawyers now need to charge clients for certain fees.

The reason why I mentioned 25% is because that is the cap that the government has placed on the charges – i.e. lawyers can’t charge anymore than 25% of a person’s compensation to cover these now unrecoverable fees. The 25% charge must be inclusive of VAT and can only be from damages for personal injury and past financial losses and be net of DWP CRU deductions.

In addition that 25% relates only to the success fee. There is no restriction on the amount they can charge in respect of basic charges.  According to our research so far, most law firms have settled at simply charging the flat rate of 25%.

But we here at The Injury Lawyers dare to be different! As we always have done!
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