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Medical Negligence No Win No Fee May Become More Prevalent
By LaMesaDuiLawyer | June 28, 2010
It is predicted that more patients than ever before will be left with no choice but to bring medical negligence no win no fee claims against the NHS this year. The rise follows reports of catalogues of blunders leaving many patients injured and unable to work. Because of such errors, the compensation paid following medical negligence no win no fee claims are vital to the patient’s future, paying for rent or mortgage payments and ongoing care if needed.
Now, new regulations which came into effect at the beginning of April this year state that NHS trusts must register with the Care Quality Commission and report its errors anonymously to a central database. Patient groups say that the regulations are not enough. They fear that deaths caused by negligence are being recorded as natural causes or untreatable injury. They also state that the families of patients who die as a result of negligence are kept in the dark about what happened.
The Department of Health’s own statistics suggest that half a million patients each year are harmed as a result of medical negligence, including during operations in NHS hospitals. The figures show that each year there are 30,000 complaints and only 6,000 medical negligence no win no fee claims. Th figures appear to suggest that relatively few patients fully understand their entitlement to make a medical negligence no win no fee claim. Patient groups are arguing that this is because of a lack of transparency meaning that they may not even be aware of any errors which occurred during their treatment.
Last year £870 million of compensation was paid following medical negligence no win no fee claims, paying for ongoing care of injured patients and supporting those that needed time off work. Despite this seemingly large number, the NHS litigation authority actually estimates that it faces £10 billion of compensation payouts based on accident reports from hospitals.
Sadly, due to lack of funding for training, errors seem set to continue. As a result more patients will suffer injury, loss of independence and financial loss. Even though medical negligence no win no fee claims exist as a back up to get justice for unfortunate patients, care needs to improve.
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