How common are hospital negligence claims?

Now, perhaps more than ever before with hospital admissions at an all-time high, it’s important to understand how everyone deserves a certain standard of medical care when they are being treated in hospital. Unfortunately, however, that is not always the case and there are thousands of instances where patients have been made to feel unsafe or suffered harm.

It’s thought that the NHS receives over 10,000 hospital negligence claims every year, which amounts to literal billions in legal fees. While you might understandably feel a little guilty about suing an NHS hospital, if you have been left unable to work due to the negligence of hospital staff, you should never feel guilty about claiming the compensation you deserve.

What is hospital negligence?

If you have recently been a patient in hospital and feel as if you received a poor standard of care then you could have experienced hospital negligence. This can be anything from getting the wrong treatment, to misdiagnosis or a poor level of treatment that left you feeling worse than when you were first admitted.

The most common injuries that can occur as a result of negligence in hospital include:-

Diagnosis - We appreciate that diagnosis is rarely an exact science. However, if you have been misdiagnosed it can lead to life-threatening circumstances. If, for example, you have been misdiagnosed with diabetes and the medication makes you feel substantially worse as a result.

Surgical negligence - When mistakes happen in surgery they can leave patients with debilitating injuries. For example, foreign objects could be left in the body, infection could set in due to poor herein on the part of the surgeon or there could be a problem with the anaesthetic. There are hundreds of things that could go wrong and many of them could be life-threatening.

Prescription errors - being prescribed the wrong medication can have catastrophic results. You could be prescribed something you’re highly allergic to or suffer side effects that leave you incapacitated. A wrongly prescribed medication could also interact with other medication you might be on.

Bad advice - All medical professionals are trained to give impartial advice when patients are being given their options. They should also be given all possible alternatives so they can make informed decisions. If a medical professional has advised you to make a choice you felt uncomfortable with, you could be able to make a claim.

Cancelled operations - The current climate is still impacting hospitals and causing hundreds of cancellations to operations every day. This also opens the floodgates for potential claims. While a cancelled operation in and of itself is not negligent, if you feel as if the cancellation has made you significantly worse, then you might have a case.