According to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), around one in ten patients in the UK are affected by clinical negligence.

The precise number of clinical negligence claims brought by patients who received treatment in UK hospitals remains unclear. However, the figure is expected to be in the thousands. Worse still, nobody knows exactly how many patients die as a result of negligent medical treatment each year, with 40 per cent of negligent incidents thought to pass unreported.

What is Clinical Negligence?

Clinical negligence describes any negligent act or omission that causes injury or illness. Doctors are required to perform their duties to an incredibly high standard, a standard that is necessary to ensure the health, safety and well being of patients. If doctors fall short of this standard, patients' lives are put at risk.

Nobody can prevent all injuries, illnesses and deaths. If doctors were truly omnipotent, there would be no fatalities. Unfortunately, death is a natural consequence of life and so it follows that not every patient can be saved by their doctor. The issue of negligence only arises when a doctor's actions fall below the standard expected.

How is Clinical Negligence Defined?

Cases of negligent medical treatment follow a similar legal path to most other personal injury claims, but for one or two notable differences. In order to establish clinical negligence in law, the claimant (or their legal team) must be able to prove that the defendant doctor (or health authority) breached their duty of care. It is also necessary to establish that the breach caused the harm and that the breach was a result of a negligent act or omission.

There are various legal tests in place to define negligence, but it is worth noting that doctors cannot be held negligent if they are found to have reached the standard of a responsible body of medical opinion. Thus, doctors are afforded more scope to defend claims of negligent medical treatment, but are by no means immune to legal action.

Examples of Clinical Negligence

As noted above, doctors cannot be held negligent if they follow a course of action that conforms to the standard of a responsible body of medical opinion even if their actions cause injury, illness or death. Doctors might not, therefore, be held liable for neglecting to intubate a patient who subsequently dies when a responsible body of medical opinion suggests the practice is unnecessary or inadvisable.

Medical professionals are far more likely to be held liable for simple mistakes, such as misdiagnosing a patient, failing to administer the most appropriate treatment, causing unintentional injury during surgery, scalding a patient in hot bath water and so on.

Why Claim Compensation?

Clinical negligence claims not only afford patients the chance to receive a financial remedy for the harm caused to them; they serve to protect other patients from suffering similar negligent medical treatment.