Professional Negligence Pocess

Claims Process - Professional Negligence

A Professional Negligence claim is any claim that is made against a person who is considered a professional, most prominently being doctors and solicitors. There are standard procedures to follow if you have been injured as a result of negligence on a professional’s part.

Claims against a Medical Professional

You are entitled to make a claim against a doctor or specialist if you are injured as a result of one of the following cases;

-    Misdiagnosis
-    Negligent or Unacceptable Treatment
-    Failure to perform surgery to a high standard

While many are wary about claiming compensation from a medical professional, in some cases it is the correct course of action as a negligent doctor can potentially cause the loss of life. Claim Time will endeavour to ensure that the claim is fully supportable before taking it to court.

Claims against a Solicitor

A claim can be made if you believe that a solicitor working for you has treated their duties in a negligent manner. A claim can be made in any of the following cases;

-    Solicitor has provided a poor service
-    Solicitor is guilty of professional misconduct
-    Solicitor is guilty of negligence in regards to the matter they were hired to deal with.

Complaints against solicitors are handled by the Legal Complaints Service. Once you make a complaint to them, they will determine if the complaint is legitimate and, if it is, will refer the case to the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority. This is relevant for both the providing of poor service and when a solicitor is guilty of professional misconduct.

A slightly different route is taken in the case of negligence, which is when a solicitor does not act in the way they are expected to, such as not serving papers to a defendant on time, serving them to the wrong person and generally neglecting to perform the duties for which they are responsible. In these cases the claim is handled in court.

If you feel that a professional has failed you in any respect, Claim Time may be able to help you claim compensation.

Evaluation

After you have contacted Claim Time with an initial enquiry, we will make it our duty to get right back to you to record details about you accident and the type of injury you believe you have sustained.

The case will then be reviewed by one of our team, who will determine whether or not the incident involves the liability of the professional and, if it does, how best to pursue the claim. We will contact you as soon as this process is completed to let you know whether your claim is substantial.

The process may become quite complicated at this stage, as it is often difficult to prove the liability of the professional in question, thus the process may take a large amount of time.

This part of the process simply acts as, in essence, a quote. We put you under no obligation to pursue the enquiry, and all evaluations are provided free of charge. If your case is deemed to be eligible for compensation, and you agree to pursue it, then we will appoint one of our team of dedicated solicitors to tackle the case.

Their first step will be to make a detailed recording of all of the information that you have thus far provided. This document will then be sent to you to sign, confirming that everything you have told us is true, thus providing us with the ability to pursue the case.

The case will then enter the Advisory Period, in which we begin telling you what steps need to be taken to ensure a successful claim.

Advisory Period

The first step your solicitor will take, in most cases, is to ensure that you begin taking a daily record of your symptoms and recovery process. This can be used as evidence to show that, in the case of a claim against a medical professional, that the injury is legitimate, as well as displaying the suffering it has caused you.

If a claim is being made against a solicitor, evidence must be gathered in relation to the nature of your claim against the solicitor, for example if the solicitor is guilty of negligence, evidence must be gathered to prove this.

This is the first step in acquiring evidence for the claim, and while you begin this your solicitor will be making contact with the person or company that the claim is being made against, informing them of the claim and your intentions.

In addition to this we will also attempt to provide an early idea of the sort of compensation you will be entitled to, as well as advice on how we intend to aid you in living with a serious injury.

We will carry out a Medical Examination, often during this advisory process, as part of gathering evidence.

Medical Examination

At some point during the case, Claim Time will arrange for you to see an independent medical specialist who deals in whatever kind of injury you have sustained. This is only really relevant in cases against Medical Professionals.

This is done to obtain an unbiased viewpoint of the injury, upon which you can base your compensation claim. The report will be extremely comprehensive and will detail the extent of you injuries, the rehabilitation process and any problems that the injury may cause you in the future. This report forms one of the fundamental pieces of evidence for your claim, and will thus have a large bearing on the amount of compensation you are likely to receive. The report may also include medical advice, such as a course of action to take after the injury. Finally, the report will also display any falsehoods in a claimant’s account of an incident.

The examination is intended to display how you have, or will attempt to have, recovered from the injury, rather than the extent of the injury itself, which should be backed up by your own medical records. This information allows for us to determine the compensation you are entitled to as part of you rehabilitation, and will thus take place approximately 3 months after the initial injury or, if the injury is particularly serious, when the claimant is on their way to recovering and a long term prognosis can be obtained.

A thorough medical examination provides you with a larger chance of making a successful and fair claim. The examination is certainly in the client’s best interests and, although it may draw out the claiming process, it will guarantee you attain a fair amount of compensation.

Compensation

Gaining compensation against a professional is often much more complex than a personal injury claim. In the case of a complaint against a solicitor, the following apply;

Solicitors

Professional Negligence

The court has the power to award unlimited compensation based around the severity of the claim, as well as making a finding of legal liability; however you are unlikely to receive any kind of compensation for distress or any inconvenience caused by the negligence. This will change if the claim is made against a personal injury lawyer who has been found guilty of negligence. In this case any associated elements associated with the initial injury may also be compensated.

There are various time constraints and limitations involved in these cases. You usually have 6 years to submit a complaint from the time when you deem the solicitor to have been negligent. However if you are claiming against a solicitor that was negligent during a personal injury claim, you then have 9 years to make a claim against them.

Poor Service

In these cases, the maximum compensation reward is £15,000, assuming the complaint is upheld by the Legal Complaints Service. There are limits associated with this that will be detailed below, however all Poor Service complaints must be made through the Legal Complaints Service.

Professional Misconduct

These cases are dealt with by the both the Legal Complaints Service and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. In these cases, an award of compensation can be made up to £1,000,000, depending on the level of misconduct.

In terms of limitations, if you intend to make a complaint against a solicitor, you must first submit a letter of complaint to that solicitor and allow them 28 days to respond. If the response is not received or is unsatisfactory, then you must contact the Legal Complaints Service. The complaint must be received within 6 months of the ending of your dealings with the solicitor.

In cases where the solicitor has committed a number of these acts, the client then has to use their judgment as to which type of claim to pursue. Claim Time will endeavour to offer the best possible advice in relation to this.

Medical Professionals

Cases against medical professionals are much more straight forward in this respect, with similar compensation packages as a personal injury. The compensation can be split into 3 sections;

Initial Compensation

This is the compensation that you receive for the injury itself. This will usually constitute the bulk of the compensation that you receive, and will be a direct sum based upon the severity of the personal injury.

Supporting Compensation

This area of compensation relates to any aftercare or rehabilitation that the injury requires. For example, if your injury requires you to have 24 hour care, the supporting compensation will be an agreed amount to take care of this. It generally takes the form of rehabilitation and treatment costs, so it could be anywhere within a wide range of sums depending on the severity of the injury.

Expenses

This area of compensation covers a number of areas, such as loss of earnings from being unable to work; care required during this period and most importantly any specialist medical treatment of equipment that is required to enable you to deal with the injury. Again this can be within a large range depending on the severity of the injury. Catastrophic Injuries tend to see large amounts of expenses recuperated.

There are also additional areas of compensation, such as potential psychological damage that the incident has caused, as well as compensation for possibly having to give up a job you enjoy due to your injury.

There is a time limit for making a claim, after which it becomes very difficult to gain compensation. The usual limit is for the claim to have begun within 3 years of the initial injury. Claims related to aviation must be made within 2 years and claims made for injuries suffered while abroad must be made under the jurisdiction of the country in which the injury occurred.

Each case is unique and all are on a “No Win, No Fee” basis, so Claim Time work around the clock to ensure that you receive the best compensation package for your personal injury. It doesn’t stop there though, as we provide a comprehensive Aftercare program to ensure that you have all the advice you need to move forwards with your life.

Aftercare

Our relationship with our clients doesn’t end once we have attained their compensation, as we realise that they may require advice on how best to move forwards with their lives after a potential life altering injury.

In these cases, Claim Time will do its utmost to provide the best care and advice possible for its clients. If a client is in need of psychological therapy after a traumatic injury or issues with a negligent solicitor, we will endeavour to find and recommend a quality psychologist that can help them deal with the issues surrounding their injury.

Additionally, if any medical treatment is required beyond what has been received initially, Claim Time can recommend our clients to a number of specialists who can provide the best treatment possible. Not only this, but we will make an effort to ensure that the clients compensation package includes any associated costs with their aftercare pocket to ensure they aren’t left out of pocket.

We aim to provide all the necessary tools to bring you back onto the road to recovery. Claim Time will strive to meet all of its client’s requirements at all times.