Medical Negligence

Medical negligence (also known as clinical negligence or medical malpractice) is a breach of duty of care by healthcare professionals.

When you’re treated by someone working in the healthcare profession, you’re embarking on a contract of sorts – duty of care, it’s called – where you’re entrusting them to give you the best possible medical attention and care they can provide. Whether it’s a doctor or surgeon, a dentist, pharmacist or care home attendant, all of them are bound by law to attend to your needs to the best of their abilities.

Errors that qualify as medical malpractice will typically fall into one of several categories. These include a failure or delay in diagnosing a patient’s condition, misreading X-rays, prescribing the wrong pharmaceuticals, failing to warn a patient of the risks or side effects of a procedure, performing services without the patient’s informed consent, and making a mistake during surgery or childbirth.

When doctors act carelessly, the results can be catastrophic for the patient. It is not surprising, then, that damage awards in medical malpractice cases are among the largest of all personal injury cases.