Medical Negligence
Understanding Medical Negligence: Your Rights and Our Commitment
At MDS, we specialise in representing people who have been harmed as the result of negligent medical treatment. Medical negligence, also known as clinical negligence, occurs when the care provided by medical professionals falls below the expected standard, causing avoidable injury to the patient. Our expertise lies in forensically examining the care provided to you or your loved one and building the key elements necessary for a successful claim.
What is Medical Negligence?
Medical negligence is substandard care provided by health professionals. This substandard care must also result in avoidable harm. This applies to care provided in the NHS or the private sector. Medical negligence is a complex area of law, and it requires careful handling by specialist medical negligence lawyers.
Establishing a Medical Negligence Claim
To succeed in a medical negligence claim, four critical elements must be established:
Duty of Care
All health professionals (doctors, nurses, surgeons, midwives, dentists, physiotherapists, opticians, etc.) owe a duty of care to their patients.
Breach of Duty of Care
Was the care provided substandard, i.e. below the standard expected of a responsible body of similar professionals?
Causation
Did the substandard care cause an avoidable injury?
Injury
What was the extent of the avoidable injury?
The Challenge of Proving Causation
This is the tricky bit. Did the negligent treatment cause or materially contribute to your injury?
If you can show that the health professional made a negligent mistake, you must then prove that the negligence caused you some harm. This is causation. Proving causation can be difficult in medical negligence cases. Our job is to investigate if what happened to you would have happened anyway or if it happened because of the negligent mistake. Sometimes the injury can be confused with an underlying condition for which you required medical treatment in the first place.
Proving causation is a matter of independent expert evidence from a health professional in the relevant discipline.
Our Approach
We will support you, guide you and be your voice throughout.
If you are concerned about the medical treatment that you or a loved one has received, please contact us and one of our specialist team will assist you.
