Steps to take after a potential medical negligence

health-and-law

With COVID and all things health-related, it’s worth knowing what a medical negligence is and how to act on it. Here’s what you should do if you think that you’ve received incorrect medical treatment.

Understand what medical negligence is

Medical negligence is care provided to you by a medical professional that has been substandard, resulting in your condition getting worse, or even has directly caused injury. Medical negligence happens in several different ways including misdiagnosis, surgical errors, and incorrect treatment.

Find out what type of negligence you received

There are many different types of medical negligence. To make a correct medical negligence claim, you will need to know which type of medical negligence you received. These are the most common types:

Medical Misdiagnosis

Medical Misdiagnosis is where a condition can be completely missed or unidentified and will go undiagnosed, resulting in more problems later in life – this can even be fatal. This could also be through an incorrect diagnosis being made.

Providing the wrong type of treatment, or no treatment at all, can result in life-threatening issues down the line. 

sad doctor

Prescription and Medication related negligence

Prescription and Medication related negligence is where the patient has been prescribed the wrong type of medication as their treatment. This can lead to things like brain damage, allergic reactions, digestive issues and in some cases death if the dose was fatal.

Depending on the rarity of the case, these types of surgical negligence are known as “Never events” as they should have never happened due to being such a slim chance. This can also include cosmetic surgeries.

Surgical Negligence

Surgical Negligence is where a mistake has been made during surgery. For the most part, surgeries in the UK are incredibly successful, but there can be the occasional error made.

Negligent Medical Advice

Negligent Medical Advice is when the patient hasn’t been correctly informed about the risks of a surgery or medication, they are receiving along with the alternative methods available, and as a result something has gone wrong.

Pregnancy and birthing injuries

Pregnancy and birthing injuries occur when there is medical negligence during the pregnancy, birth or afterwards, that results in injury to mother or baby – this can sometimes have devastating results and change the path of the child’s life forever. 

Think about how it has affected you

Has your medical negligence resulted in you being unable to work? Have you been left with lasting damage due to wrong treatment? 

By writing down exactly how the medical negligence has affected you and those around you, along with when it started, you and your solicitors will be able to pinpoint where the occurrence happened and have every necessary detail for making your claim. 

It can be traumatic to discuss your medical negligence experience so remember to be patient with yourself, take all the time you need, and think about your wellbeing first.