If you’ve suffered harm at the hands of a healthcare professional, you may be left with long-term physical and psychological effects. As such, you may be seeking a sense of justice by considering the medical negligence claims process. Thankfully, our advisory team is here to help you. We understand that the prospect of starting a claim can seem daunting, and you may be wondering how to prove medical negligence occurred. By helping you gather and build strong evidence, our advisors along with our panel of solicitors, can help guide you through the claims process.
At Public Interest Lawyers, our advisors work around the clock to provide a fully personalised service to people just like you. For instance, our team will answer your questions, provide helpful advice and give free eligibility consultations to assess the strengths of your case. Following this, you could be connected with one of the specialist solicitors from our panel to start your medical negligence claim. Working on a No Win No Fee basis, our panel of dedicated solicitors have decades of combined experience in securing successful settlements for clients.
To start your medical negligence claim today, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of our friendly team:
How To Prove Medical Negligence
- Copies Of Medical Records
- Independent Medical Assessment
- Documenting Your Account Of The Negligence
- Statements From Any Witnesses
- Photographs Of The Damage
- Correspondence Logs
- Records Of Financial Loss
- What Do You Need To Prove In Order To Make A Claim?
- Can A Solicitor Help Me To Gather The Evidence?
- No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Claims
- Learn More
Copies Of Medical Records
Supplying a copy of your medical records can help provide an objective account of the care you received. For instance, your medical records can reveal any deviations from standards of care such as a sepsis misdiagnosis, a failure to refer or a delay in treatment.
Your medical records can also provoide a chronological account of your medical treatment, from your initial visit to a GP to receiving test results. The seqeuntial order of medical care will also help to pin-point at what point the medical negligence ocurred.
To learn more about how to prove medical negligence through your medical records, please get in touch with our friendly team.
Independent Medical Assessment
If you’re connected with one of the expert solicitors from our panel, they could arrange for you to receive an independent medical assessment. This will be an unbiased evaluation from a medical expert that allows you to receive clarification of the harm you suffered. In the independent medical report, the expert can identify any breach of duty you may have suffered from a previous healthcare professional. Moreover, this report can help establish causation in linking the harm you suffered directly to a healthcare professional’s negligent acts or inactions.
An independent medical assessment can also help to evaluate the full extent of the harm you suffered and its impact on your daily life. With expert comments about your prognosis, this report can also help a solicitor to assign an accurate compensation value to the harm you suffered.
To be connected with our panel of solicitors today, please contact our team for a free case check.
Documenting Your Account Of The Negligence
You could also keep a daily symptoms diary to provide as evidence of the harm you suffered. In doing this, a personal diary will act as contemporaneous evidence in showcasing the pain you suffered. Documenting your account of the negligence can also allow you to show how your physical health, mental health and daily activities have been affected. It’s therefore essential that your personal account is detailed and factual to ensure its accuracy.
Your account of negligence can also include conversations with healthcare professionals, dates and names to help pin-point where and when you received substandard treatment.
To discuss your personal documentation with a member of our team, please feel free to get in touch today.
Statements From Any Witnesses
Statements from people who witnessed your negligent treatment can act as extremely beneficial forms of evidence. Witness statements will provide a first-hand account of what occurred.
To prevent a biased version of events, you cannot collect these statements yourself. Instead, you can gather the contact details of anyone who may have witnessed your treatment. Once these details have been provided to your solicitor, a statement will be obtained from them.
For any further questions about witness statements, please contact our advisory team today.
Photographs Of The Damage
Unlike written or verbal descriptions that can be subjective, photographs of the harm you suffered will serve as powerful, objective forms of evidence. Photographs also exist as tangible evidence which can be relied upon and discussed during the legal process. Taking multiple photographs over time can also showcase how your harm evolved and developed over time due to medical negligence.
To learn more about how to prove medical negligence through photographs, please contact one of our helpful advisors today.
Correspondence Logs
Whilst you experienced medical negligence, you may have expressed your concern to friends, family members and professionals. Therefore, providing correspondence logs can provide helpful evidence whether it be through emails, letters, text messages or meeting notes.
Not only can correspondence logs help to prove the harm you suffered, but they can also provide a timeline for the sequence of care and where things went wrong. Correspondence logs can also be used to help fill in the gaps that may be left by official documentation such as your medical records. For instance, some records may be poor or incomplete and correspondence logs can help correct any discrepancies.
To learn about the different examples of correspondence you could provide, please get in touch with our team today.
Records Of Financial Loss
If you suffered financial losses, it’s essential that you provide supporting evidence to claim for these losses. Through the award of special damages, you could receive reimbursement for monetary losses you suffered due to your harm. Whether you’re claiming for lost earnings, medical expenses or travel costs, you should keep a record of the financial losses you suffered.
As such, evidence to show financial losses can be provided in the following forms:
- Payslips
- Bills
- Receipts
- Bank statements
- Invoices
To discover more about how to prove medical negligence in relation to special damages, please contact our advisors today.
What Do You Need To Prove In Order To Make A Claim?
To prove medical negligence, you will need to demonstrate that you suffered unnecessary harm due to negligent medical treatment. In essence, you will need to fulfil the following requirements:
- A healthcare professional owed you a duty of care
- They breached the duty they owed to you
- You suffered harm as a result of the breach
It must be emphasised that healthcare professionals owe you a duty of care; this includes doctors, nurses, pharmacists and much more. As such, healthcare professionals should provide the minimum expected standard of care when treating patients.
This means acting in the patient’s best interests at all times and making decisions based on sound clinical judgement rather than convenience or external pressure.
They should carry out thorough assessments of a patient’s condition by listening carefully to symptoms, reviewing medical history, and ordering appropriate tests where necessary. Diagnoses and treatment plans should be based on accurate information and current medical guidelines, and any uncertainty should be addressed by seeking advice, making referrals, or arranging further investigations.
Proving that a healthcare professional’s breach of duty resulted in your harm is otherwise known as causation; this must be firmly established in order to make a claim. Moreover, you must have suffered harm as a result. This could be physical or mental harm, ranging from chronic pain, scarring, damage to internal organs, paralysis and PTSD.
If you’re still wondering how to prove medical negligence after experiencing substandard treatment, please contact our team today.
Can A Solicitor Help Me To Gather The Evidence?
Yes, a solicitor can help you to gather evidence by requesting documentation on your behalf, such as your medical records. If you’re connected with one of the specialist solicitors from our panel, they could help you by:
- Analysing your evidence. For instance, a solicitor can help to recognise the strengths and weaknesses of your evidence, identifying what is relevant to support your case.
- Interviewing witnesses.
- Instructing experts on your behalf, such as an independent medical assessment
- Ensuring that evidence is collected legally and that proper procedures have been followed
- Preparing your evidence into court bundles in the event that proceedings are issued
To receive a free case consultation today, please get in touch with one of our helpful advisors.
No Win No Fee Medical Negligence Claims
Our team of advisors work 24 hours, 7 days a week to provide the best service to people looking to make a claim. Following a free case check, you could be connected with one of the experienced No Win No Fee solicitors from our panel to start your claim. As experts in medical negligence claims, our panel of solicitors will work to prioritise your health and wellbeing throughout the process. By operating under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), you could enjoy the following:
- No solicitor service fees at the start of your claim, as it progresses or in the event that it’s unsuccessful.
- If your claim is a success, you’ll be required to pay a success fee to your solicitor. Please note that the percentage of this fee is capped by law, and will be taken from your compensation. Consequently, you’ll always receive most of your compensation.
If you’re connected with one of the solicitors from our panel, you could also experience the following benefits on a No Win No Fee basis:
- Connecting you with physiotherapists, counsellors, occupational therapists and other specialists. In doing this, we could help to aid any ongoing physical or mental harm caused by medical negligence.
- Explanations of legal terminologies to give you a fundamental understanding of the medical negligence claims process.
- Regular case updates so you’re never left wondering where your claim stands.
- Expert advice about medical negligence that strictly adheres to the rules of confidentiality.
- Helping you to apply for interim payments for any ongoing financial losses.
- Negotiating on your behalf to achieve a settlement that accurately reflects your pain and suffering.
- Communicating with other parties and the courts during the claims process.
Get In Touch With Public Interest Lawyers
If you’re still wondering how to prove medical negligence, our team is here to help you. For personalised assistance from our advisors, please get in touch:
- Call us on 0800 408 7825
- Contact us by filling out our online form
- Use our free live chat service
Learn More
To learn more about medical negligence claims, please see some of our other guides:
- Get help with making a claim for surgery negligence compensation
- See the advice on birth trauma compensation claims
- Learn about cauda equina syndrome claims
Additional external resources:
- Learn about when to call 999 from the NHS
- Get help with getting copies of your medical records from NHS England
- See the following advice on how to raise a concern with the General Medical Council
Thank you for reading our useful guide on how to prove medical negligence.