Welcome to this helpful guide on the benefits of choosing the best medical negligence solicitors for Reading to represent your claim.
All medically trained professionals are expected to meet the required standard of care when treating patients across hospitals, GP surgeries, dental practices, and other medical facilities. Both in the NHS and private sector.
However, on some occasions, the care provided falls below the required standard in health and social care facilities across the UK.
Whilst errors may happen, they aren’t always a result of clinical or medical negligence. If you’re unsure whether you could pursue a claim, our guide could help. We’ll explore whether the harm you sustained was caused by negligence in a medical setting.
Furthermore, we’ll help you find clinical negligence solicitors with experience helping people who have suffered negligence by a doctor, dentist, nurse or other healthcare professional.
If you require any clarification on anything whilst or after reading our guide, please use the details below to get in touch:
- Telephone — 0800 073 8804
- Live chat with an advisor using the feature below
- Send your enquiry by filling out the contact form
Choose A Section To Find Out More About Making A Clinical Negligence Claim
- What Is Clinical Or Medical Negligence?
- What Role Will NHS Resolution Play In My Claim Against The NHS For Negligence?
- Benefits Of Using Experienced Medical Negligence Solicitors For Reading
- How To Find The Best Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Reading Area
- What Claims Do Our Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Reading Area Handle?
- Clinical Negligence Compensation Claims Calculator
- Statistics For NHS Negligence Claims
- No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Reading
- How To Start A Medical Negligence Claim
- Additional Guides And Helpful Links
What Is Clinical Or Medical Negligence?
Clinical or medical negligence is defined as a healthcare professional failing to uphold the duty of care they owe their patient by causing them further or avoidable harm after providing a substandard level of care.
For example, a doctor may have failed to prescribe you the correct medication after they failed to check your patient notes. As a result, you may have experienced an allergic reaction.
Alternatively, you may have experienced a surgical error such as a never event. For instance, a surgeon may have operated on the wrong part of your body, causing you further harm in the form of an operation that was not necessary. Furthermore, the delay in appropriate treatment might cause your original condition to get worse than it would have if the operation had been performed correctly initially.
If you have been injured due to clinical negligence, you may wish to seek compensation by using experienced solicitors from medical negligence law firms.
A claim could be brought forward for yourself or on behalf of someone else, such as a family member who is unable to seek compensation themselves.
For instance, in cases where medical negligence has resulted in death or someone does not have the mental capacity to make a claim themselves.
If you’d like to learn more about your options of bringing forward a claim, please speak to an advisor on the number above.
How To Make A Medical Negligence Claim?
In order to make a successful claim using clinical negligence solicitors for the Reading area, you must provide evidence that the harm you experienced could have been avoided had you received the correct level of care.
For instance, medical evidence in the form of doctor or hospital records could be used to highlight whether you were given the correct treatment or diagnosis. Additionally, other evidence could be provided to support your claim, such as:
- Prescriptions
- Referral letters
Any medical evidence you provide could highlight whether you experienced further or avoidable harm in the form of a physical or psychological injury. Furthermore, it could help when seeking compensation for the pain and suffering you’ve experienced.
For more information on how you could gather the evidence you need, please don’t hesitate to contact our team on the number above.
What Role Will NHS Resolution Play In My Claim Against The NHS For Negligence?
As a representative of NHS Trusts in England, NHS Resolution may be involved in your claim if you’re claiming against an NHS medical facility.
They may be involved regardless of whether you experienced clinical negligence when receiving care from a doctor, dentist or medical professionals in a hospital.
As per NHS Resolution’s advice for claimants, please remember that whilst your claim could seek financial redress, it will not bring action against the healthcare professional. Furthermore, it will not force changes in the way procedures are carried out.
However, they aim to ensure compensation is awarded fairly and that they learn from any mistakes to prevent the same incidents from happening again.
Before making your claim, you may wish to go through the complaints procedure in place at the medical facility where you received care.
Although you don’t need to do this before taking legal action, any correspondence between you and the establishment could be used as evidence in your claim.
If you’re unsure of the process, get in touch with our team to see if they could appoint one of our medical negligence solicitors for Reading to help you.
Benefits Of Using Experienced Medical Negligence Solicitors For Reading
There are several reasons you may wish to use expert clinical negligence solicitors to claim for damages. For instance, they could help you gather medical evidence which could be used in support of your claim.
Additionally, as part of the claims process, you may be asked to attend an additional medical exam to produce a current report on the full extent of the harm you sustained. A solicitor could arrange for you to attend this exam locally.
It’s important to note that if you are concerned about the costs associated with seeking legal representation, there are other options to consider.
For instance, you could use a No Win No Fee solicitor to remove the expense that can often cause concern for those wishing to use a solicitor to make their claim.
At Legal Expert our medical negligence solicitors for Reading could offer to represent your claim on this basis to help you get the compensation you deserve.
How To Find The Best Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Reading Area
One of the first steps in the clinical negligence claims process is finding the right solicitors to work with.
However, there are several factors you may wish to consider before deciding. We have explored these in more detail in the sections below.
Reading Medical Negligence Solicitors Reviews
Whether you’re looking for medical negligence solicitors in Reading or elsewhere, one of the most common ways to find suitable legal representation is to read reviews.
Today it is easier than ever before to find impartial reviews to compare the services offered by different clinical negligence solicitors.
For instance, they could help you better understand the services a legal firm offers and the experience the solicitors have in handling claims similar to your own.
If you’d like to learn more about our solicitors and how they could help, please read the reviews left on our page by previous claimants. Alternatively, you could speak to a member of our team using the number above.
Do I Need To Use Medical Negligence Solicitors In Reading?
Whilst you may initially think about using a solicitor who is in your town, there may be a better solicitor based in other locations. It may be that a solicitor with more relevant experience based elsewhere could help you.
Furthermore, your claim can be carried out by an experienced professional solicitor anywhere in the country by using other methods of communication such as telephone or email. This allows you to stay updated at each stage of your claim.
Although there are some parts of a claim which may need to be carried out close to you, such as medical examinations, your solicitor may be able to organise this for you.
What Claims Do Our Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Reading Area Handle?
Our medical negligence solicitors for the Reading area could help you pursue your compensation claim against healthcare professionals and providers. For instance, you may wish to claim for clinical negligence that occurred when receiving care from your dentist, GP/ doctor or nurse.
Additionally, we could help with claims against a private or NHS institution for various types of negligence, such as:
- Failed operation claim
- Medical misdiagnosis claims in the UK
- Cosmetic surgery claims
- Cancer misdiagnosis claims
- Hospital negligence claims
- Care home negligence claims
Furthermore, we have included some of the other different types of claims that our solicitors could help with. However, if you have another claim you’d like to discuss, please don’t hesitate to contact our team on the number above.
Dental Medical Negligence
There are various ways in which a patient could experience dental negligence due to a dentist failing to meet the expected level of care when treating a patient.
For instance, you may have sustained further harm after a dentist extracted the wrong tooth during a procedure.
If you have experienced something similar, you may wish to put forward a claim to seek compensation. For more information on the rights you have to do so, please get in touch with our team on the number above.
Negligence Claims Against Doctors
Our GP is often the first point of call when we are experiencing symptoms of an illness. However, in some circumstances, your GP may have failed to take the correct steps to provide you with the right treatment and diagnosis. As a result, you may have experienced further harm.
For instance, they may have failed to refer you for further tests, despite you exhibiting clear symptoms that they were unable to diagnose themselves. This might cause your condition to get worse than it would have done if you’d been correctly diagnosed.
In these circumstances, you may wish to put forward a GP negligence claim. If so, our medical negligence solicitors for Reading could help. Please get in touch with our team on the number above.
Birth Negligence Claims
Both mother and child could sustain a birth injury due to a midwife failing to provide the minimum level of care.
For instance, the midwife may have failed to correctly use forceps causing your baby to sustain a fractured skull.
Alternatively, you could have developed an infection due to the midwife failing to sanitise the equipment before use.
If you or your child has experienced harm that could have been avoided had the correct care been given, our medical negligence solicitors for Reading could help.
Clinical Negligence Compensation Claims Calculator
Compensation awards may consist of general and special damages.
General damages allow you to seek compensation for your physical and psychological injuries sustained in an incident of medical negligence.
The award you receive will be calculated by assessing medical evidence to determine the severity of your pain and suffering and whether it’s impacted your quality of life. In addition, the Judicial College Guidelines may also be used to help value your claim.
As the value of your claim will depend on unique factors related to your case, it’s difficult to give a definitive figure of what you may be awarded in your settlement figure.
However, you could use our medical negligence compensation calculator to get an idea of how much your claim may be worth. Please note, you should only use the estimated figure as a guide as your actual settlement figure may vary.
Special damages allow you to claim for any past or future financial losses. For instance, you could claim back any costs that you have incurred as a result of your injury or illness, such as:
- Lost income
- Medical expenses
- Care costs
Please be aware that you will need to provide evidence to support any monetary losses, such as receipts, payslips or invoices.
Statistics For NHS Negligence Claims
Our medical negligence solicitors for Reading have helped claimants to get the compensation they deserve in NHS negligence claims.
In the table below, you can see the number of successful claims against health trusts in the Reading area during 2019/2020. Also, the table includes the total amount of damages paid out for those claims.
The figures are provided by NHS Resolution’s Trust and Authority Claims Data 2019/2020.
| Healthcare Provider | Claims Received 2019/2020 | Payments Made |
|---|---|---|
| Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust | 6 | £945,993 |
| Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust | 42 | £26,360,691 |
No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Solicitors For The Reading
Our medical negligence solicitors for Reading could offer you a Conditional Fee Agreement, also known as a No Win No Fee service.
This type of agreement is made between solicitors and claimants, which sets out what services the solicitor will provide.
Under a CFA, if the claim is successful, the solicitor will take a legally capped success fee as a percentage of your overall compensation package. However, the agreement will set out how the fee works before you agree to work with your solicitor on this basis.
The biggest benefit is that you won’t need to pay solicitor fees if the claim fails. Furthermore, you could avoid ongoing costs that may incur while the claim is ongoing, as well as upfront costs a solicitor often requires to start work on your claim.
No Win No Fee agreements have given people the chance to pursue a claim with legal representation, without having to worry about the associated costs.
For more information on how you could work with one of our solicitors on this basis, please use the number above to call our team.
How To Start A Medical Negligence Claim
Start your clinical negligence claim by contacting our team. Whether you need advice, information, or are ready to start making your claim, an advisor could help.
Our team is on hand to take any queries 24/7, use the details below to get in touch:
- Telephone — 0800 073 8804
- Live chat with an advisor using the feature below
- Send your enquiry by filling out the contact form
Additional Guides And Helpful Links
If you have suffered negative consequences as a result of receiving a misdiagnosis of cancer, view our guide to cancer negligence claims for further help.
For more advice and information on how to make a successful medical or clinical negligence claim, please visit our guide.
Please visit our guide to find out more about the time limits for suing the NHS.
See the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to find out more about the fundamental standards of care you should expect to receive in health and social care facilities in England.
Visit the General Dental Council (GDC) for more information on the standards registered dentists in the UK are expected to meet.
Local Medical Practices In Reading
Royal Berkshire Hospital
Craven Road,
Reading,
RG1 5AN
Tel: 0118 322 5111
Circle Reading Hospital
100 Drake Way,
Reading,
RG2 0NE
Tel: 0118 922 6888
Inspire Dental Reading
124 Oxford Road,
Reading,
RG1 7NL
Tel: 01189 574516
Thank you for reading our guide. We hope you have a better understanding of choosing the best medical negligence solicitors for Reading to represent your claim.
