Misdiagnosis

Knowledge and experience from a team who care

When hospital doctors, or GPs, fail to diagnose a condition which later causes serious harm to a patient, there may be a negligence case to answer.

The clinical negligence solicitors at Healys can help you bring hospital or GP misdiagnosis claims for compensation if a failure to correctly diagnose has caused you further injury, illness or harm, and quantifiable loss.

“Thank you for your email keeping me informed. I would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for all your hard work and support in negotiating a settlement. This has not been an easy case and with your expertise, compassion and patience you have finally brought my case to a satisfactory conclusion. I can now go ahead with restorative work to my teeth and with ongoing support I can now look forward to a happier future.”

D'OB

We aim to provide:

Free assessment of your claim.
One to one contact with your lawyer from day one.
Clear and unambiguous legal advice.
Visits to you at home, hospital or in a rehabilitation centre.
Early interim payments and funding for rehabilitation needs.
Maximum compensation and the best outcomes for you.

Call Healys Medical Negligence Solicitors today. Our friendly team is here to help. You can see how we have helped our clients in our case studies section.

What is Misdiagnosis?

Misdiagnosis can include any one of the following:

Failure to diagnose an injury or condition
Failure to refer a patient when the need for further examination or treatment is indicated
Failure to treat an injury or condition according to medical best practice at the time

Steps to a successful claim

Any hospital or GP misdiagnosis claim must be able to prove that a doctor acted incompetently or unreasonably when considering medical understanding at the time the incident occurred.

With help from your solicitors, you must be able to show that no other competent doctor would have considered it reasonable to treat you similarly, and he or she would have been able to make a correct diagnosis and give suitable treatment or referral from the symptoms presented.

What could you claim for?

Misdiagnosis claims can be brought for a number of different issues, but some of the most common cases handled by clinical negligence solicitors are:

No investigation or follow up of symptoms of serious illness, such as cancer
Not facilitating correct testing to exclude certain illnesses or injuries
Misreading or misreporting of biopsy reports, scans, or blood test data, etc.

Have you suffered a misdiagnosis?

If you feel you have grounds for commencing a hospital or GP misdiagnosis claim, please contact Healys today for an informal discussion of your situation.

The experienced clinical negligence team will be able to ascertain the merit of your case and the likelihood of success.

We will be able to explain the full procedure for making a clinical negligence claim against a GP or NHS trust and also explain funding options so that you can proceed with confidence.

Call Us Today

Call our London office on 0800 280 0432 or our Brighton office on 0800 280 0432. You can also contact us online.

Call Us Today

London: 0800 280 0432 Brighton: 0800 280 0432 Or you can contact us online: Contact Us

Key Contacts

Jonathan Austen-Jones

Partner

Meet the team

Misdiagnosis capabilities

Misdiagnosis experiences

Jonathan was able to help the husband of a 50 year old woman claim compensation after the hospital failed to diagnose her cancer. Mrs L attended hospital complaining of pain in her abdomen. She was discharged without further tests but unfortunately she died of thyroid cancer a few months later. Jonathan argued that the chance for a liver biopsy was missed during her visit to hospital and although this would not affect the unfortunate outcome, palliative care could have been arranged to ease Mrs L’s suffering. Jonathan was able to secure Mrs L’s husband a five figure sum in compensation.
Jonathan has also helped the family of a 71 year old man claim compensation after a complication in his surgery caused his death. Mr R was suffering from chest pains and was admitted to hospital for tests. He was found to have an issue with his heart and doctors attempted to rectify this with a surgical procedure. Unfortunately during this procedure an air pocket had got into one of his blood vessels which caused Mr R’s death. With expert medical evidence Jonathan was able to secure Mr R’s family £75,000 in compensation.
Jonathan helped X get further compensation and access to services to aid in his rehabilitation. X was a subject of sexual abuse from his step father between the ages of 5 and 7. Initial application for compensation was made in 1990 and X was awarded £10,000. After several attempts at his own life, X decided to contact Jonathan to seek further compensation. Jonathan was able to secure X £200,000 in compensation and an overall award of £1,200,000 inclusive of state benefits. More importantly Jonathan then arranged the Special Needs Trust to support X’s rehabilitation.
Jonathan helped the parents of Baby B claim compensation after a failure in care during labour resulted in Baby B’s death. Initially the Trust denied they were responsible for Baby B’s death but after negotiations the Trust admitted responsibility and Jonathan was able to negotiate an out of court settlement for Baby B’s parents.

Misdiagnosis insights

NHS Waiting List Now Over 4 Million Patients Long
12th August 2019

In 2018, official figures showed the waiting list for an NHS operation was over 4.3 million patients long. To put this into context, if we were to print this off, assuming an average of 50 patients per page, and laid end to end, the list would be 23 kilometres long (or 14 miles) – enough to stretch from our office in Brighton to Worthing (via the A27).

Continue reading »

What is the Three-part Test for Clinical Negligence?
9th August 2019

You may be surprised (and somewhat perturbed) to hear the true scale of healthcare ‘adverse events’ in the UK – these are defined as “instances which indicate or may indicate that a patient has received poor quality care”. Continue reading »

Can I Get Legal Aid For Representation At An Inquest?
4th July 2019

In two recent articles we looked at the law and procedures of Coronial Inquests in some detail. Our first article, ‘What happens at an Inquest (and other frequently asked questions)’ gave an overview of the Inquest procedure. During the course of this blog we asked, and provided answers to, questions such as, ‘When is an Inquest required?’, ‘What is the purpose of an Inquest?’, ‘What will happen at an Inquest?’ and a number of other common issues that face those involved in the Inquest procedure. Continue reading »

Article 2 Inquests – What You Need To Know
26th June 2019

The death of a loved one is probably the most traumatic, harrowing experience any human being will experience in their lifetime. Not only is there a period of unimaginable grief, suffering and uncontrollable feelings of sadness and loss to go through, but in addition there are a wealth of practicalities that have to be dealt with – a funeral to be arranged, finances to be sorted out, fellow grieving relatives who need supporting and potentially, sales of property and effects to be dealt with. Continue reading »

Hit-And-Run Victim’s Family Secure £1.2 Million In Compensation
24th May 2019

No amount of money can compensate for the loss of a loved one due to someone else’s negligence, but it can at least soften the financial blow. In one case, the widow and four children of a man who was struck down by a hit-and-run driver achieved a seven-figure settlement of their claim. Continue reading »

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