Genuine expert medical negligence solicitors are hard to come by, but our specialists have the expertise you need to successfully win the compensation that innocent victims of medical errors deserve.
If you live in Winchester, we can help. Running medical negligence claims from our local offices in Salisbury and Andover, our expert team understand the difficulties that medical negligence can cause to victims and we can minimise the stress involved in the claims process, allowing you to concentrate on recuperating.
WHAT IS MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE?
Medical negligence takes place when the doctor or medical professional in question is in breach of their duty of care towards you as their patient. This means that they must have failed to treat you to the reasonable standard of care that you would expect from someone of their position and experience.
What’s more, even if they have breached that duty of care and therefore are negligent, you can’t claim compensation unless you’ve suffered some sort of direct physical injury as a result.
However be warned –making a claim for medical negligence can the slow, so it is crucial that get specialist legal advice it as soon as you think you might have been the victim of a medical error
ROYAL HAMPSHIRE COUNTY HOSPITAL – A CATALOGUE OF RECENT PROBLEMS
If you’ve been the victim of medical negligence, the effects can be truly devastating. In the case of an Andover woman born at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, the repercussions of medical negligence were lifelong.
Becky Crothall was born at the Winchester hospital in 1988, one of twins, and birthing complications arising from the hospital staff failing to recognise the need for an emergency Caesarean meant that she developed cerebral palsy and learning difficulties. Tragically, her twin died. Nowadays Becky cannot be left unsupervised and is classed as a vulnerable adult. After taking the NHS Trust to court, she was awarded a huge financial payout.
More recently, in January 2015, the emergency department at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester was the centre of the scandal when despite struggling to cope with patient admissions for a four-day period, the hospital management simply refused to formally declare it as a “major incident” in the face of repeated requests to do so from a number of their senior doctors. Why? Allegedly because it “would look bad in the media” and the Trust would be fined. This is despite the fact that at its worst, the hospital had approximately 25 patients dumped in the ambulance corridor, with the condition of some patients being serious enough to require being given oxygen.
Interestingly, in one recent survey of hospitals in England and Wales, the Royal Hampshire County Hospital scored what was referred to as a “smart rating” of 94% and was described as “ one of the best hospitals in the nation based on current indicators and hospital studies”. However strangely, the same survey found that just 67% of the staff actually employed their recommend the hospital! What’s going on there?
UPDATE – ROYAL HAMPSHIRE COUNTY HOSPITAL – THE LATEST CQC REPORT
The latest report by the care quality commission on Winchester’s own hospital, run by the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is reasonably positive.
In general those living in or around the Winchester area will be pleased to know that the hospital was described In the report published by the CQC in November 2015as “good. Let’s hope they keep up the apparent progress.
However safety issues were described as requiring improvement and in particular the inspection rating found that outpatients also “requires improvement”. That’s a concern given how many local people use outpatients – with 211,418 people attending outpatient services in 2014. The report was critical in particular of what it described as, “one serious incident requiring investigation “where a patient ‘s health needs simply weren’t followed up at all.
The trust was also reported to have a disappointingly high number of clinics cancelled at short notice.
THE NEED TO INSTRUCT A SPECIALIST MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE SOLICITOR
Medical negligence is a very difficult area of law and few solicitors are genuine specialists. Those without sufficient experience and expertise of medical negligence claims are unlikely to win the full compensation you deserve. It’s essential to really understand both law and medicine as the success of your case will depend on a thorough understanding of medical issues and procedure, and the ability to understand the detail of many different kinds of medical evidence, including your GP or hospital notes, specialist reports and x-rays.
Furthermore, our firm – along with just 120 or so others [out of almost 11,000 law firms] nationwide – has been awarded the Law Society’s Specialist Quality Mark for Clinical Negligence.
And in addition, our medical claims team consists only of experienced and qualified solicitors – your case is not run by a call centre junior but by an individual local solicitor. And what’s more, one of those solicitors is also a qualified and experienced nurse.
WHY CHOOSE US FOR YOUR MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE CLAIM?
o We are not a claims company or a faceless call centre operation. We are Bonallack and Bishop, a local law firm with offices near to Winchester [in Salisbury, Amesbury and Andover] who specialise in medical negligence cases
o We offer both initial phone advice and a first consultation FREE of charge
o We can visit you at home or in hospital anywhere in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset, if you are too unwell to travel
o You needn’t worry about funding your claim either, because we offer ‘no win, no fee’ agreements for medical negligence claims
o We understand that some medical negligence claims involve very personal information – so you have a choice of a male or female solicitor to run your case
NEED ADVICE ON A MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE CLAIM IN WINCHESTER? CONTACT US NOW
If you have been the victim of medical negligence, our medical negligence team can help you. For the compensation you deserve, simply get in touch with us today.
For FREE initial advice from expert Medical Negligence Solicitors you can trust
- Call our team now FREE on FREEPHONE 0800 1404544, or call one of our local offices directly on Salisbury [01722] 422300 or Andover [01264] 364433
OR - Email us using the contact form below