Clinical negligence is widely considered one of the most competitive areas of law. This area of law is concerned with providing compensation for injury or death that was the result of a mistake during medical treatment. Although it is commonly used to refer to lawyers working on behalf of patients, it also encompasses those working on behalf of medical practitioners to contest these claims. While it is commonly conflated with personal injury, clinical negligence is more focused on the medical complexities of treatment while personal injury usually deals with accidents outside of healthcare settings.
What is Clinical Negligence?
Clinical negligence is the tort that provides protection for patients against medical or healthcare practitioners who through their mistakes or carelessness cause unnecessary physical or mental harm to the patient. Given the variety of factors involved in whether medical treatment is successful, this area of law can be very nuanced and requires both knowledge of the law and the NHS and private healthcare sector.
While clinical negligence is a specialised sector plentiful in supply and demand, this sector primarily covers two areas of law; tort and contract. Tort legislation and case law outlines the process by which practitioners can be held at fault for the injury or death or misdiagnosis, and this is what the lawyer will focus on. For cases involving insurance companies, knowledge of contract law and what terms are legally enforceable is pivotal.
What Does a Clinical Negligence Lawyer Do?
Among the many tasks shared across the legal sector, clinical negligence lawyers perform more specialised tasks.
Importantly, the lawyer must prioritise reading any new correspondence from case parties. The Civil Procedure Rules set out strict deadlines for when cases can be brought. The lawyer must prioritise all ongoing cases accordingly to ensure no client ends up missing their chance. A firm can have dozens of cases ongoing at once.
For new cases, the lawyer will have to take witness statements from friends/family of the patient, as well as correspondence from the defendant. Using this, they will draft a medical chronology of the treatment. They should then be able to identify at what point any mistakes were made. Importantly, actions taken in medical treatment are not considered in hindsight; the lawyer must consider what the practitioner knew at the time they chose to act.
Once both sides have their information, they will typically try to reach a settlement before going to trial. If negotiations fail, pre-trial meetings will take place. These will have a panel of experts, usually other practitioners, to determine the scope of injury. The claimant lawyer will also use their client’s financial records to determine the value of compensation they are seeking. Bundles of medical information can easily go into thousands of pages.
What Makes a Good Clinical Negligence Lawyer?
- Communication Skills – A single case can involve patients, practitioners, insurance company representatives and other professionals relying on technical knowledge. The lawyer must be able to navigate all parties involved.
- Empathy – Clinical negligence work involves communication with those recently injured/bereaved, or otherwise undergoing extreme distress. The lawyer must be able to show sympathy while maintaining their professional manner.
- Time Management – Clinical negligence cases can go on for weeks or months, but can also change dramatically when new information comes to light. The lawyer must stick to a lengthy schedule and learn what deadlines to prioritise.
Clinical Negligence Practitioners
There are plenty of law firms that serve clients that need clinical negligence help:
- Brabners – Claimants
- Browne Jacobson – Defendants
- Capsticks – Defendants
- Fieldfisher – Claimants
- Hempsons – Defendants
- Hill Dickinson – Defendants
- Irwin Mitchell – Claimants
- Kingsley Napley – Claimants
- Shoosmiths – Claimants
- Weightmans – Defendants
By Charles Burton