Accident & Emergency Negligence Compensation Claim Lawyers

Most hospital accident & emergency (A&E) departments and their dedicated staff provide patients with swift and superb care. Given the nature and the purpose of A&E departments, it is crucial that the standard of care remains extremely high.

As a necessary component of the UK healthcare system, emergency departments of hospitals across the nation are meant to serve patients experiencing serious or life-threatening injuries or diseases. Nearly 1.75 million patients are seen in the emergency department every month, making it among the busiest and arguably, the most error-prone division of the country’s healthcare system.

But sometimes the standard of care does slip, and there can be serious negative consequences.

You can claim compensation if you feel that A&E staff made a mistake or if you feel that you were not given an adequate level of care, as these shortcomings fall under the category of medical negligence. As a trusted and LEXCEL accredited law firm, Sheldon Davidson Solicitors can help you make your claim. Contact our lawyers to discuss your grounds for compensation.

What Is A&E Negligence?

Regardless of the injury or disease, each of us is entitled to receive the minimum standard of care from the medical practitioners responsible for treating us.

However, in the fast paced, high pressure nature of the A&E Department, this is unfortunately not always the case. Medical staff are always on the move to ensure that all patients are attended to. Sadly, with the rise in demand for A&E departments and services and the shortage of NHS staff, mistakes are inevitable.

The type of negligence claims most commonly seen against the NHS in 2018/19 was in emergency medicine, with 13% of clinical negligence claims coming from this area.

If mistakes are made, then the actions of your health providers may be considered negligent.

If you feel that you did not receive the right care, then there may be grounds for you to claim compensation for A&E negligence.

In order for A&E staff to be considered negligent, they need to have breached their duty of care towards you and provided an inadequate standard of care.

Having helped many clients over the years that have experienced sub-standard or negligent care in accident and emergency departments, we often see the following types of incident as major areas of A&E negligence.

Misdiagnosis or Delayed Diagnosis

Even very good doctors and nurses fail to spot symptoms if they don’t carry out a thorough examination. Misdiagnosis can happen if they don’t have a good grasp of your medical history, or they don’t carry out necessary procedures such as blood tests and X-rays.

Mistakes can also occur through misinterpretation of data – for example, misreading test result figures.

In extreme cases, you could even be told there is nothing seriously wrong with you and that you can go home – which means you don’t receive the treatment you desperately need.

If you have been to the A & E and were given the incorrect diagnosis that has led to you undergoing the wrong treatment or has resulted in delaying your treatment, then you may have a claim. In that instance, contact our solicitors at SDs who will advise you on the best course of action.

Errors in Treatment or Surgery

If you receive treatment that is not relevant to your injury or ailment, it can worsen your condition.

There may also be an error during the treatment or surgery itself, which could render the procedure unsuccessful. In extreme scenarios, these errors can make your injury even worse, and in worst-case scenarios, could have fatal consequences.

Considering your health is paramount and the quality of treatment you receive from the NHS, private clinics and hospitals should reflect that. When you are admitted to hospital for treatment or surgery, it is important to know that there are highly qualified specialists and surgeons carrying out operations. Therefore if you feel that you have not received the right treatment or surgery and that has resulted in worsening your condition, that could be ground for filing a compensation claim.

Given the nature of A & E and the fact that all patients with any form of injury or acute health concern are primarily admitted to A & E, the scope for things to go wrong is wide and varied.

Examples include:

• Failure to properly examine you
• Failure to take an x-ray, so that a broken bone or fracture is not discerned
• Failure to examine a medical image correctly
• Failure to conduct appropriate tests
• Inaccurate or incorrect reporting of test results
• Failure to obtain full patient records
• Inability to arrange a follow-up or to refer you to a more specialised department.
• Misdiagnosing of illness or condition- This can lead to missing things like meningitis, heart attacks and sepsis
• Treatment delays
• Discharging you when you should be in hospital being monitored or having emergency treatment
• Administering incorrect medication or treatment which causes you harm

To make a medical negligence claim, you need to show that the treatment you received directly led to your condition worsening beyond what it would have if you had received proper treatment.

However, it is also important to bear in mind that just because you have been injured in an accident or your condition has been made worse by the treatment you received at A&E, or indeed, even if you have been initially incorrectly diagnosed, this does not always mean that you were the victim of negligence. Our experienced medical negligence team will be able to help you understand if you have grounds for a claim.

If you feel that you have received inadequate care, reach out to Sheldon Davidson Solicitors who will be able to assist you in moving forward with your claim.

A&E Negligence Compensation

As a specialist A&E negligence compensation law firm in Manchester with over 20 years’ experience, we provide an unparalleled level of expertise to those seeking justice and compensation when injured through a non-fault accident or due to medical negligence.

The amount and means of compensation awarded will be based on the specifics of your case and can be used to help cover the costs of:

• Additional medication
• Loss of earning
• Disability support
• Extra medical treatment
• Therapies

What Evidence Do You Need To Support An A&E Medical Negligence Claim?

When claiming compensation, you will need to support your A&E negligence claim with some form of medical evidence. This might include:

• Records showing your A&E visits
• Details outlining treatment received
• Documents showing date/time of discharge from A&E
• Medical records from after A&E visit showing the harm caused

This can help to determine the standard of care you received and highlight any places where the level of care you received fell short of the minimum standard expected. Furthermore, it can provide evidence to support your claim if you sought treatment for the harm you were caused later down the line.

A medical report will usually be requested by your solicitors from the additional medical assessment they organise as part of the claims process. This report will detail the state of your injuries.

How can you prove medical negligence?

To determine whether medical negligence has happened, the courts will request a test referred to as a Bolam test. This test involves a panel of medical professionals who will assess if there has been a breach in duty of care.

The professionals are experts in their fields who also will have experience working in the A&E department. They will have good knowledge and understanding of the professional standards expected within this field.

If the panel of medical professionals confirm that there has been a breach in duty of care, then that would be considered medical negligence.

No Win No Fee A&E Medical Negligence Compensation Claims

A No Win No Fee agreement is a method of handling your legal costs without having to pay anything upfront or while we work on your claim. If you win your claim, you will paya small success fee. This fee is capped to ensure that you get the majority of the compensation awarded to you.

A No Win No Fee agreement can give you the peace of mind that you won't have to spend any money on legal costs should you case not be successful.

If this is something that you like to discuss in more depth, please call the solicitors at SDS today so that they can discuss how we will represent you on a No Win No Fee basis.

Can I claim on behalf of a family member?

If you want to claim on behalf of a family member who died as a result of an A&E error, we can help you make the claim. The amount of compensation you receive will depend on many factors, which we can explain to you over the phone or in person. Speak to one of our solicitors today to discuss the process.

Medical Competency And Duty Of Care

Despite the shortage of NHS staff and the complexities of an A&E department, all medical professionals are expected to uphold the standards expected of them within their chosen field of practice. There are government regulatory bodies in place to ensure they are doing so.

These bodies include the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The GMC is responsible for overseeing the training of all registered doctors in the UK, providing ethical guidance on the standard of care that medical professionals ought to provide.

The CQC is responsible for monitoring care services, including care homes. They publish their findings to help the public choose between care services.

In A&E, it’s vital that all doctors understand the standard of care they’re expected to provide to patients. They should be aware and familiar with their hospital’s guidelines and protocols that should be followed in A&E. Failing to meet the set standard of care could result in A&E medical negligence.

As much as these regulatory government bodies have enforced stringent guidelines, it is unfortunate that there are some patients who still fall victim to A&E negligence.

Choose Sheldon Davidson Solicitors for your claim

Established in Manchester in 1997, we are a leading specialist medical negligence law firm acting for claimants throughout the whole of England & Wales.

Our A&E Negligence Solicitors act regularly for clients across the Greater Manchester community including Ashton, Bury, Bolton, Radcliffe, Prestwich, Middleton, Failsworth, Rochdale, Oldham, and Whitefield.

We can support your needs wherever you live in Wales, England & Northern Ireland.

We specialise in No Win No Fee Claims, so call us for free now using the number at the top of the page or complete the online contact form and a member of our team will get back to you.

Sheldon Davidson Solicitors are a Lexcel accredited medical negligence and personal injury law firm. The Lexcel standard is only awarded by the Law Society to firms who meet the highest standards of practice management and customer service.

With Sheldon Davidson's Medical Negligence Solicitors in Manchester, you can be confident that your claim is in safe hands