Medical Negligence

Medical negligence is when inappropriate medical treatment can be shown to have contributed to a deterioration of a patient’s condition. The volume of claims resulting from medical negligence has been growing year-on-year for sometime now. About 5% of the time people report suffering from an adverse effect following medical care and an increasing proportion of these result in a claim. To have a successful medical negligence claim it is necessary to prove that there exists a “duty of care”, that there was a “breach of that duty” and the there have been “consequential damages” as a result. Within the NHS the “duty of care” rests with the NHS Trusts (not with individual careers).