Tens of thousands of UK residents choose to have cosmetic surgery every year. The industry is fairly unregulated, as we came to understand from the PIP breast augmentation scandal from 2012. Each year thousands of people end up turning to lawyers because they want to make a claim for compensation for cosmetic surgery gone wrong.

In this article, we’re going to talk about nose surgery (rhinoplasty) compensation claims.

I can understand why some people may want to have a nose job. The nose is one of the most prominent parts of the face, and ultimately an ugly or badly distinguished nose can literally transform a good looking person in to a not so good looking person. It seems obvious that the end result is not always what people are after; cast your memory back to Michael Jackson’s nose, or take a look at Lil’ Kim’s.  But with any cosmetic surgery procedure, things can so easily go wrong.

Here are some classic examples of problems that can be caused by cosmetic surgery negligence:
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The above terms, liposculpture and liposuction, essentially mean the same thing. We are of course talking about a medical procedure whereby fat is suctioned from the body. The fat is removed from the area between the skin and muscular area of the body. This is ordinarily a cosmetic procedure to improve a person’s appearance, usually around the stomach area. Some medical professionals use the two terms to mean slightly different things. For example liposuction is used to remove excess fat and liposculpture is used to remove a lesser amount of fat and is more concentrated in reshaping the fat to improve appearance. Others say the term “liposculpture” is used as a marketing term and that both procedures refer to the same thing.

Before undertaking any form of surgery, your surgeon should explain in full any potential risks or side effects that may occur. When opting for surgery you should always be making an informed decision. No surgical procedure is risk free and sometimes the potential risks could become a reality. So when it comes to making a claim, it really comes down to whether an actual mistake has been made either practically, or arising from advice given to you about potential risks of the procedure.
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Many cancer claims arise as a result of a misdiagnosis or wrongful diagnosis. Cancer is of course a very serious, potentially life threatening condition in any event. Diagnosis and early diagnosis is often key in the patient making a full and complete recovery. Any delay in diagnosis could have huge consequential effects for the patient and his or her family.

When life is at stake, claiming compensation is probably not something you think of. But if you have wrongfully suffered as a result of a wrong diagnosis or there has been undue delay in your treatment, then you may have a genuine claim for compensation.

There are a number of situations which could give rise to a compensation claim, and a claim could fall within the realm of a normal personal injury claim or a clinical negligence claim.
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We live in a world where appearance is everything. We also live in a world where science and medicine have developed to such an extent that suffering from even the most severe injuries can still lead to surgeons putting you in a position with a fairly good quality of life (I’ve had my knee pretty much entirely reconstructed; rewind a hundred years ago, I’d have had it amputated!)

So when you combine the need for looking great with the technology we have today, cosmetic surgery is now increasingly popular amongst anyone with enough of a disposable income to afford it. It is now so readily available that it isn’t just the celebs that are having work doesn’t to look as good as possible. In fact, many people take out loans or use credit to be able to afford cosmetic surgery.
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When you go under the knife to have cosmetic surgery your surgeon or his/her team should fully explain all of the risks with the procedure. You will no doubt be aware that every operation carries all kinds of inherent risks. There are general risks of pain, chronic pain, scarring, infection etc that are fairly common in most procedures. Even the general risks, which apply to probably all operations can develop and lead to significant injuries and even death. Unfortunately all operations, however minor, carry an element of risk. You do have the right to be notified of the risks in full and the likelihood of the risk actually occurring. Even with cosmetic surgery, you may be entitled to make a claim should things go wrong. This is a specialised area of law and it is therefore essential that you speak to a legal specialist that deals in this kind of work.

Many of these types of claims are often to do with botox or beauty treatment. However claims could be made in respect of any cosmetic surgery should things go wrong; despite the fact the procedure is cosmetic. If you are not happy with the cosmetic surgery or you have been left in undue pain or you have been left with injuries, or if you were not correctly advised about any potential risks / side effects, you may have a genuine claim for compensation.
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In recent years, the number of horror stories about the quality of nursing home and nursing care workers has been explosive. I’ve seen loads of TV programs and read loads of articles about nursing care staff who just don’t seem to care at all about the patients, and even staff stealing and mistreating those in need of the care.

It’s a scary thought – especially for anyone with friends or relatives in a care home.

As a firm of specialist personal injury lawyers, we deal with all sorts of different claims for compensation. We represent victims for compensation against the NHS or private care homes if the care provided is inadequate or negligent. Common examples are failing to properly care for people, such as neglecting basic food, water, and sanitation needs, which can cause a range of health complications to already vulnerable people. Another example could be failing to properly medicate residents, which could lead to existing health problems getting worse.
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For employers, adhering to manual handling regulations is one of the most important things they need to get right. It is so easy to injure your back by using poor lifting techniques or because routes and lifts are not properly risk assessed by employers. There is a significant duty on employers to make sure that their employees are adequate trained and the lifting exercise is risk assessed to take in to account the weight and size of the load, the amount of people needed to assist, the use of mechanical assistance, and the safety of the journey (to name a few common factors!)

As a law firm specialising in accident at work claims, I can tell you that despite the strict rules and regulations in place, employers are still cutting corners and getting it wrong. If you’re reading this I assume it’s because you have injured yourself at work due to manual handling. For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to go in to manual handling alone.

So, as I said earlier, your employer has a duty to risk assess any manual handling activity. If you are going to be instructed to lift something on your own, your employer needs to be confident that:
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Is there anyone on this Earth that enjoys going to the dentist? Really there isn’t anything enjoyable about it, and I get that people hate seeing medical professionals as we are worried about what they’re going to do to us; but going to the dentist is particularly one of those things that people tend to be frightened of. The sound of the drills as you walk through the halls and the waiting rooms…

As specialist injury lawyers we deal with all varieties of personal injury claims. We represent victims for dental surgery negligence, so here’s a little advice about compensation claims for dental negligence.

Firstly, to make a claim, we have to prove that the dentist has provided you with poor or incorrect treatment or an inadequate level of care. This is not always easy to do, as there are a lot of complications surrounding treatment provided by dentists that are not so easy to avoid. Infections are very common, and they are generally accepted as an inherent risk of a dental procedure. If you get an infection after a procedure, it isn’t very easy to make a successful claim given they are often an inherent risk.
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We place our trust in the medical professionals we seek help from to do their best to keep us well. Nowadays there are thousands of conditions and problems that are treated by medication; from the simple drugs like paracetamol to the all important chemotherapy for cancer victims. But what happens when the medication we are given goes wrong? What happens if there is an error made?

Commonly the scenarios are the following:

• You are prescribed the incorrect medication for the problem by a doctor.
• You are given the wrong medication by the pharmacist.
• You were not warned of potential side effects, or not enough investigation was done in to conditions you have or other factors personal to you that could cause an adverse affect (e.g. certain medication could harm during pregnancy).

A medical professional has a duty to properly investigate your symptoms to make sure you are prescribed the right medication. If you are given medication which exacerbates the problem or does not help the problem, you may have a claim if you can prove that the judgment made by the professional was below standard. If other professionals could confirm that they would have treated you in a different way, and that the judgment made by the original professional was poor, there may be a case to answer for. We can normally establish this with expert reports from consultants we instruct as part of your personal injury claim.
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I’m pretty certain that there is no one on this Earth that relishes the thought of going to A+E. I’ve been a few of times, and it’s the same old story – they’re rushed off their feet, it takes hours just to be seen by a nurse, let alone a doctor, and they’ll probably going to discharge you and tell you that you’ll be absolutely fine and its nothing to worry about. Four days later you’re lying on an operating table because that “minor muscular injury” they convinced you that you’d be recovered in no time from is a complex fracture!

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.
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