Accident & Emergency Claims

Doctors and nurses in A&E are under a great deal of pressure, but they still need to meet certain standards. They’re specially trained to be able to recognise and diagnose illnesses, prioritising patients so that the most serious cases get urgent treatment.

When this process breaks down and people slip through the net, the results can be tragic and sometimes fatal. Some of the most common mistakes involve failures to:

• Take a patient’s medical history properly
• Refer a patient for tests (e.g. x-rays, blood tests and scans)
• Examine a patient properly.

These errors can mean that patients are sent home from A&E when they should have been admitted to hospital. People with general (diffuse) pain rather than localised symptoms are sometimes simply given painkillers, when in fact they’ve got a serious health problem.

By the time a doctor or consultant has diagnosed the medical condition – often after the patient’s made multiple visits to a GP or walk-in centre – it might be too late to give them the treatment they should’ve got when they first visited A&E.

We could help if you’ve had one of these conditions misdiagnosed in A&E:

• Aneurysms
• Broken bones
• Cauda equina
• Heart attacks
• Meningitis
• Misdiagnosed miscarriage
• Severe allergic reactions (anaphylactic shock)
• Strokes.

For many of our clients, an apology and an explanation is as important as compensation. We can guide you not only through your claim but also through the NHS complaints process. There are several schemes to deal with complaints about GPs or hospitals.

It’s often possible to claim a small amount of compensation from these schemes, and the organisation involved will also sometimes make an official apology. If you’re not happy with the response to your complaint, we can help with the next steps. That could mean requesting an independent inquiry or taking your complaint to the Health Service Ombudsman.

For very serious complaints, we can take your case to the General Medical Council (GMC). The GMC disciplines doctors and can prevent them from working in future. While the GMC can’t award compensation, many of our clients take comfort from seeing steps taken to ensure the mistakes made in their case won’t happen again.

The normal time limit is three years from the date you received negligent treatment. If you learned later that substandard treatment was responsible for your illness, the three-year limit starts from the date you learned this.

In any event, we always advise you to start making a claim as soon as possible. This is because the details will be fresher in your mind and the minds of witnesses. It’ll also be easier for us to gather evidence to support your claim

We can’t give you an exact figure until we know a little more about your situation. Each claim is unique, and so is the amount of compensation awarded.

To get an idea of how much compensation you could be entitled to, speak to us today. We’ll then be able to put a value on your claim once we know the details.

Yes, you can make a no win no fee A&E claim for compensation. The majority of our personal injury claims are made using a no win no fee agreement. If you’re eligible for no win no fee, you’ll have nothing to pay if your claim is unsuccessful. If your claim is successful, most of our fees will be paid by your opponent. You’ll need to enter into an agreement linked to a suitable insurance policy to make a no win no fee claim. We’ll discuss the finer points with you, as well as alternative funding options, before we start working for you. Read more about making a no win no fee claim.