When we are sick or injured, we look to medical professionals to help to make us better. Hopefully it requires nothing more than a trip to our GP, but sometimes we need to spend time in hospital to recover or have an operation. While we are there, we rely on the medical professions to have our best interests at heart. Nobody can question their dedication, but they are often dealing with many severe cases at once under difficult circumstances. There is no surprise that sometimes mistakes are made. Small errors often have little impact on the success of your treatment, perhaps only delaying recovery only slightly. Occasionally however, mistakes can have more serious consequences. An instance of negligence from a medical expert can leave you with your health ruined, which impacts on your ability to enjoy life and provide for our family. If you think you have suffered in this way, you should consult a lawyer.

Taking legal action against a hospital, health authority or even a pharmaceutical company is not a decision to be taken lightly. It should be done purely if you want to claim compensation for the suffering you have endured due to negligence. The chances are you won't get any apology from the medical staff who were at fault and there is no guarantee that the hospital will admit that they were at fault or take responsibility for your suffering, much less change their practices to make sure that the mistakes aren't repeated. If you are actually looking for an apology, or to change the hospital's procedures, you need to choose a different course of action.

If you decide to make a claim, you need to consider what form of negligence you want to claim for. There are many mistakes that can be made whilst actively treating a patient: Errors during surgery, prescribing the wrong drug or dosage, delaying diagnosis without good reason or offering the wrong diagnosis. There are also errors that can be made outside of direct treatment: Not giving the right treatment, not warning about the risks of certain treatments or drugs, or even not getting the correct consent from the right people or for a specific treatment. However, before you proceed, you should think about whether your complaint does constitute negligence. People respond to treatment in different ways, symptoms can be misdiagnosed for very good reason and sometimes a doctor is trying to assess a critical situation with hardly any information to hand. The doctor may have behaved properly, but the treatment may have failed anyway. The judge will be aware of these problems with any claim and will be very cautious with his verdict.Your medical lawyer will advise you if your claim can be supported.

Also remember that there are time limits in most areas of British law. In the case of medical negligence it tends to be three years. There are exceptions to this rule, however. If the victim is mentally handicapped, then there may be no time limit at all. If the victim was a child when the alleged negligence took place then the clock starts when he or she reaches eighteen. The time starts from when the injury is discovered and not necessarily when the negligence took place. And finally the judge may decide to ignore the time limit if he sees fit - though this is a very unusual occurrence. Your lawyer will be able to advise you if you have any concerns about how the time limit applies to your case.

When you are about to embark on a specific legal claim like medical negligence, it is really important to make sure you consult a lawyer or solicitor who is an expert in medical negligence law. This is a very complex legal area and often the defendant is very reluctant to admit any fault. Hiring a general lawyer could be disastrous for you. Take a look on the internet and search for a specialist in your area. Search for phrases like "Medical negligence lawyer" and "Personal injury lawyer". Then work through a short list. Call them all and ask them if they specialise in your particular kind of claim. Be prepared to give them relevant information that will help them to decide if you have a legitimate claim or not. Depending on the type of claim this could be pictures, the names of the medical practitioners who treated you, any paperwork regarding your treatment and any witnesses who could substantiate your claim. Most lawyers will be happy to discuss your claim free of charge and give their advice about the best way to proceed.

There have been some massive medical negligence scandals over the years, where large pharmaceutical companies, or health boards have been responsible for gross negligence towards hundreds or thousands of people. However, most medical negligence cases involve a single claimant, who is trying to get redress for a medical error that has had dramatic consequences for their lives. Your health is your most precious asset. If you have been the victim of medical negligence you deserve to get compensation for your suffering.