Welcome to our guide, which aims to help you find the best medical negligence solicitors for Darlington. A solicitor with experience in handling medical negligence claims could help you get the compensation you deserve.
If you have evidence that a trained medical professional failed to act with the correct level of care, causing someone further or avoidable harm, our guide could help. We’ll explore the rights you have following an incident of medical negligence.
Additionally, this guide will explore where you can find expert legal representation. Although you may wish to hire a solicitor, you may still be apprehensive about the costs often involved in doing so. If so, we will explore an alternative option known as a No Win No Fee agreement that could help.
Furthermore, we’ll look at whether one of our solicitors could take your case and represent you on this basis.
Most importantly, we’ll explore the process of making a medical negligence claim. However, if you require any further information whilst or after reading our guide, please get in touch with our team on the contact details below:
- Telephone – 0800 073 8804
- Use the live chat feature below to get advice from an advisor
- Fill out the form with your contact details, and an advisor will call you back.
Select A Section If You Require More Information
- When Could I Make A Clinical Or Medical Negligence Claim?
- Examples Of Medical Negligence
- Proving No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Claims
- Choosing The Best Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Darlington Area
- Types Of Claims Our Medical Negligence Solicitors For Darlington Can Handle
- Claims Made Against the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
- What Damages Could I Seek In My Clinical Negligence Claim?
- No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Solicitors For Darlington
- Next Steps You Can Take
- Helpful Resources For Finding Medical Negligence Solicitors For Darlington
When Could I Make A Clinical Or Medical Negligence Claim?
Medical negligence is a term used to describe the events that led to a patient being harmed whilst receiving a substandard level of care at a healthcare facility.
For instance, a doctor fails to check the patient history before prescribing medication. As a result, it leads to the patient suffering a severe allergic reaction. Medical negligence can result in varying levels of harm, and in the most extreme cases, it could lead to the death of the patient.
However, in order to make a medical negligence claim, you must have evidence to prove that reasonable steps could have been taken to prevent you from sustaining either further or avoidable harm.
If you have evidence that you experienced negligence leading to harm, you may be able to pursue a medical negligence claim. For more information, please get in touch with our team as they could help you find medical negligence solicitors for Darlington to represent your case.
Examples Of Medical Negligence
Medical or clinical negligence can occur in various ways. For instance, a doctor may have prescribed you the wrong medication dosage, leading to you overdosing.
However, generally, it results from a medical professional failing to take practical steps to prevent a patient from suffering harm that could have been avoided. Some examples might include:
- Surgical negligence: A never event involving a surgeon leaving a surgical instrument in their patient leading to a serious infection that could have been avoided.
- Dental medical negligence: A dentist failing to remove all of the infected parts of the tooth before attaching a crown in a root canal procedure.
- GP negligence: A doctor failing to refer a patient to a specialist leading to their symptoms worsening and causing further harm as a result.
- Hospital negligence: Poor hospital hygiene, resulting in a patient catching a bacterial infection due to their wounds being left uncared for.
If you’ve experienced something similar, you could seek help from medical negligence solicitors for Darlington. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team for further information.
Proving No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Claims
When working with medical negligence solicitors for Darlington, they will assist you with the process of gathering evidence to support your claim. You must be able to prove that you were harmed by the negligent actions of a healthcare provider in order to make a valid claim.
Here are some examples of evidence you could gather. However, it’s important to understand that this is not an exhaustive list:
- Medical records – These official documents will contain detailed information regarding your symptoms, injuries, and treatment administered. For example, if you were prescribed the wrong medication for your condition, the medication should be listed in your records. You have the right to request your medical records at any time.
- Witness statements – To illustrate, if there was a friend or loved one with you during the incident of medical negligence, then they could submit a written statement pertaining to what they witnessed.
In addition to evidence, medical negligence may also be established via the Bolam Test. This is when a group of medical professionals are consulted in an official capacity about whether or not the patient was administered an acceptable standard of care.
If it is deemed by a medical professional’s peers that the minimum standard of care was not given, this could be interpreted as medical negligence. However, the Bolam Test may only be necessary in cases where liability is in question.
If you have any questions regarding how else you may be able to establish that your injury or illness was caused by medical negligence, get in touch with our advisors today. You can even head to our compensation calculator to see how much your claim could be worth in compensation.
Choosing The Best Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Darlington Area
Finding the best solicitor for your case is crucial to helping you get the compensation you deserve. Although you may wish to find local medical negligence solicitors in Darlington, there are other solicitors outside your local area that may have more experience with your particular type of claim.
When considering whether a specific solicitor is suitable to represent you, checking they have experience handling similar cases is a good idea.
In the following sections, we have provided some information on finding the best solicitor for your case.
Reviews Of Solicitors For Darlington
Online reviews of a solicitor you’re considering can be a great way to get an overall opinion of the legal firm. In addition, you can see the services they have on offer and whether they meet your legal needs.
Additionally, seeking advice or recommendations from your friends and family can allow you to hire a solicitor you can trust to help you with your claim.
Do I Need to Use a Solicitor In Darlington?
There is no requirement to use a local legal firm to represent your medical negligence case. In fact, it can be more beneficial to you to use a solicitor who may not be in your local area but has experience with medical negligence claims.
It may have been easier to use a local solicitor before the internet, but now you can keep in touch with your solicitor no matter where they are in the UK.
Our expert clinical negligence solicitors work with claimants across the country and could represent your case. Please get in touch with our team of advisors for more information. Alternatively, see the reviews on our page.
Medical Negligence Claims Our Darlington Team Can Handle
Our expert team of medical negligence solicitors for Darlington can handle various claims, including those made against a hospital, private hospital, NHS trust, doctor’s surgery or dental practice.
Furthermore, we could handle the following types of medical negligence claims, such as:
- Sepsis negligence claims
- Cosmetic surgery claims
- Medical misdiagnosis claims
- Cancer misdiagnosis claims
- Birth injury negligence claims
- Surgical negligence claims
This is not an exhaustive list of the cases we take on, so please get in touch with our team to discuss whether one of our solicitors could work on your case if you have a different claim.
Claims Made Against the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
The table below shows the number of successful claims against the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. In addition, it highlights the total amount paid in damages, NHS legal costs and claimants costs.
The figures are provided by NHS Resolution’s Trust And Authority Claims Data 2019/2020.
| Healthcare Provider | Successful Claims Between 2019/2020 | Total Damages |
|---|---|---|
| County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust | 80 | £10,584,043 |
What Damages Could I Seek In My Clinical Negligence Claim?
Each compensation claim for medical negligence may include general and special damages. These allow you to seek reimbursement for the damage you’ve incurred as a result of your injury. However, each one compensates you for a different type of harm.
Please see below for more detail on each one.
General Damages
As part of your compensation claim, you could seek reimbursement for your physical and psychological pain and suffering caused by your injuries.
When calculating how much your injury is worth, medical evidence will be looked at to provide details on the nature of your injury. Alongside this, a document often used to help value claims called the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) may be used.
If you choose to hire a solicitor to represent your case, they could accurately value your claim. For more information on hiring medical negligence solicitors for the Darlington area, please call our team on the number above.
Special Damages
We understand that you may have faced financial challenges due to your injuries. However, as part of the claims process, you have the right to seek reimbursement of any past and future financial losses incurred by your injury.
For instance, if you have been unable to work while recovering from your injury or illness, you could seek loss of earnings. Additionally, you could recover the following under special damages:
- Care costs for you or anyone else dependant on you, e.g. a child or elderly parent
- Travel expenses, e.g. getting to and from doctors or solicitor appointments
- Medical expenses, e.g. prescriptions, physiotherapy or counselling
- Home adjustments, e.g. wheelchair accessibility
However, you must provide evidence to prove any losses of a financial nature. For instance, receipts, payslips or invoices.
No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Solicitors For Darlington
If you would prefer to look outside your local area and hire medical negligence solicitors for the Darlington area, perhaps we could help. As well as having experience in medical negligence claims, all of our solicitors take cases on a No Win No Fee basis.
This means you won’t be asked to pay solicitor fees if your case is unsuccessful. Instead, a success fee will be deducted from your overall compensation package after your claim settles if your case is successful. However, you will be made aware of the legally capped fee before you agree to start your claim with the solicitor.
Most importantly, it can help you avoid costs sometimes required for a solicitor to start work on your claim.
In addition, whilst you can put forward your claim for free without a solicitor, other costs may incur whilst your claim is ongoing. For instance, costs required to access medical reports or evidence. Whereas these costs are covered under the agreement.
If this is something you’d like to find out more information about, see below for how you could get in touch with our team.
Next Steps You Can Take
If you want to work with one of our solicitors, get in touch with an advisor. Once they have all the details of your case, they can assess whether you have a valid case. If you do, they could connect you with a solicitor to represent you on a No Win No Fee basis.
Alternatively, they can provide further clarification on anything else of which you may be unsure. Either way, get in touch for more help and advice:
- Telephone – 0800 073 8804
- Use the live chat feature below to get advice from an advisor
- Fill out the form with your contact details, and an advisor will call you back.
Helpful Resources For Finding Medical Negligence Solicitors For Darlington
For more information on how medical institutions are monitored, see information on the independent regulators within the UK.
We have published many guides focused on specific aspects of medical negligence for your information, which we have included below.
Visit our guide on blood transfusion compensation claims.
See our guide exploring a brain injury from childbirth medical negligence.
Our guide on claiming compensation for a hernia due to medical negligence could help.
Local Darlington Medical Centres
Darlington Memorial Hospital
Hollyhurst Road
Darlington
County Durham
DL3 6HX
Tel: 01325 380100
BMI Woodlands Hospital
Morton Park
Darlington
County Durham
DL1 4PL
Tel: 01325 341700
Clifton Court Medical Practice
Victoria Road
Darlington
DL1 5JN
Tel: 01325 46564
Darlington Dental Clinic
18 Southend Ave
Darlington
DL3 7HL
Tel: 01325 462 082
Thank you for reading our guide on how you can find the best medical negligence solicitors for the Darlington area.
