The Journey
1. Initial Contact
After your first contact with our office, we take our time to understand the errors you believe were made. During your initial contact, and throughout your claim, you will have the opportunity to discuss any concerns you may have with a member of our team. Once we have all the required details we will apply for the medical records. Obtaining these can take a couple of months.
2. We Will Gather Information & Prepare
Once we receive the medical records, we carefully and thoroughly review them to ensure they are complete and accurate. We will then arrange a meeting to go through the records with you and discuss your recollection of what happened. We know that this can be a stressful process so our team will do everything we can to help put you at ease. Following on from this, we will prepare a statement for you written by one of our medical negligence professionals.
We also call on experts in the relevant fields of medicine to help us assess what happened. For example, we may need to refer to an obstetrician, a midwife, a neonatologist, a neurologist, a surgeon or a GP. Once we have obtained independent expert opinion, we will have a meeting with you, the expert, our junior barrister and often our QC. You can read more about this in our Glossary of Legal Terms.
3. The Conference
The next stage of the process is known as a Conference. This takes place to help us identify both the strengths and the weaknesses of your case. Once this is concluded, our team will draft a letter to the hospital setting out what we believe to have happened.
To get to this stage of proceedings can take 12 months or more. The Trust should reply to our letter within four months, but this is very rarely the case. The response may admit that they failed in their duty of care and that this caused an avoidable, and significant injury. However, sadly it is often the case that the reply received from the Trust believed to be responsible for medical negligence will deny any such mistakes were made.
If the hospital does come back denying any wrongdoing, we have to issue court proceedings. This involves our experts drafting a ‘‘Particulars of Claim’ document setting out your case. Once we have served proceedings, the hospital will have 28 days to file a ‘Defence’. They can, and will often, ask for an extension of time to do this.
4. Courts
The next stage is when the court will set out a timetable for the management of the case. During this stage, many steps need to be taken. The usual timetable is around 18 months to the actual hearing of the case. During this time, we will exchange witness statements as well as our experts’ reports with the hospital. Our team of legal experts will have a discussion with the hospital’s experts to identify any parts of the claim that can be agreed.
Cases can be settled at any stage during this process. If there is no settlement, the case goes to trial by judge. This means there will be no jury present and the decision lies solely with the judge dealing with the trial.
The judge will read and hear all the evidence presented by both sides and will reach a conclusion. Our specialist team are meticulous, determined and leave no stone unturned to achieve justice for the families we represent. We do our best to achieve success for all of the families who come to us for help and know from past experience that a successful case can help transform lives. We have a strong track record of succeeding, even in cases where previous law firms have failed.
5. The Future
Many of the families who come to us require specially adapted accommodation. If this is the case, then money to support these adaptations forms part of our claim. If you would like to see how some of our successful claims have helped transform the lives of other families, please take a look at Liam’s Story & Hannah’s Story. Hydrotherapy pools, sensory gardens, sensory rooms, specialist bathing equipment and bespoke wheelchairs can all be provided out of the compensation.
Most of our clients will also require ongoing care, often needed round the clock. We can secure compensation for this if it is required. Therapies can also be provided including speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, music therapy and hydrotherapy.
The aim of our dedicated service is to help improve the quality of life for the individual who has been seriously injured and to help meet their future needs.
Our no win no fee approach
We do not want our fees to be an obstacle for families seeking justice, so we operate on a no win no fee basis to support our clients. We also help families secure interim payments in advance of the final settlement as we understand that there will be many immediate and costly needs.
If you believe that your family has suffered a preventable injury as a result of medical negligence, please contact our empathetic specialist team of medical negligence solicitors here.
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