Despite their considerable training and knowledge, doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals are sometimes guilty of negligence.

In fact, more than 21,000 clinical negligence cases had yet to be settled by the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) in March 2011, with more than 8,500 new claims having been received in 2010/2011. Provided below is a guide to claiming clinical negligence compensation from the NHS.

Facts and Figures

According to the NHSLA, which handles claims made against primary care trusts (PCTs), 63,804 negligence claims were brought against NHS hospitals between April 2001 and the end of March 2011. 9,024, or 14.14 per cent, of cases during this time period have yet to be settled (excluding 'live' cases that have not yet been classified as new claims). Interestingly, 24,050 (37 per cent) of cases were dropped by claimants, whilst 28,714 (45 per cent) were settled out of court. Only 2,016 (3 per cent) claims resulted in damages being approved or set by a court.

Types of Claim

Clinical negligence claims brought against NHS hospitals arise from all manner of accidents, blunders and errors. Some of the most common types of clinical negligence claim include misdiagnoses, ineffective or inappropriate treatment, unsuitable or erroneous prescriptions, incorrectly examined x-rays, misinterpreted test results, treatment without consent and surgical errors.

In fact, NHSLA figures reveal that surgical errors were the most common cause of claims made under the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts as of March 2011, with some 25,867 cases being brought against NHS hospitals. Other specialities or divisions of the NHS that have been responsible for clinical negligence claims include obstetrics & gynaecology (13,095 cases), medicine (12,045), accident & emergency (7,800), psychiatry and psychology (1,713), anaesthesia (1,524), radiology (1,107), pathology (1,001), ambulance (718), paramedical support services (681), primary GP care (261) and nursing (244).

The Law

In order to establish a claim for clinical negligence, the claimant must be able to establish that the health authority responsible for the provision of care or treatment breached its duty of care and that the breach caused the injury or illness in question. Further legal tests and criteria are applied to clinical negligence claims, however, making them somewhat different from most other types of personal injury claim.

How to Claim

Evidence of the alleged injury or illness and how the condition was caused ought to be obtained by the claimant, who should contact a specialist personal injury solicitor without delay (and certainly within three years of the injury accruing or becoming aware of it). In the first instance, evidence is usually provided in the form of medical reports obtained from doctors.

No win no fee personal injury solicitors are then likely to request an independent medical report after a registered nurse or doctor has discussed the issue with the claimant to establish whether there might be a basis for a claim. As noted above, most claims brought against NHS hospitals are settled out of court.