While often used interchangeably, medical negligence and clinical negligence have distinct definitions. On this page, we address the clinical negligence vs. medical negligence debate, when someone may bring a clinical negligence claim and what happens during this process.
Clinical Negligence vs. Medical Negligence
What is medical negligence?
The term medical negligence refers to when a medical professional carries out substandard care, resulting in an adverse impact on a patient, such as an injury or worsening of an existing condition. If you have suffered medical negligence, you can make a specific claim for various issues, such as mistakes in surgery, delayed diagnosis or prescription errors.
What is clinical negligence?
Similar to medical negligence, the clinical negligence definition describes a healthcare professional failing to meet the required standard of care, resulting in harm or injury to a patient. However, the word ‘clinical’ is wider-ranging and applies to many different types of care.
The clinical duty of care extends beyond medical services provided by qualified doctors and nurses. Examples include residential care, care for those suffering from drug and alcohol misuse, mental health social workers, cosmetic procedures, slimming clinics and pregnancy terminations. There is a broad definition of ‘healthcare worker’, which includes dentists, paramedics, radiographers, anaesthetists and biomedical scientists.
For many years, lawyers only referred to ‘medical negligence’. However, various organisations, such as the Law Society have replaced the term ‘medical negligence’ with ‘clinical negligence’. The Law Society receives applications from solicitors and decides whether they are sufficiently experienced to be granted specialist status in medical litigation. If approved, they are included as members of the Clinical Negligence Accreditation panel.
Many of the Medical Solicitors team are members of this prestigious scheme. Our Director, Caroline Moore, has been a member of the Clinical Negligence Accreditation panel since 1999.
When Can You Make a Clinical Negligence Claim?
Clinical negligence claims are brought when healthcare professionals have provided a patient with substandard care that either caused an injury or worsened an existing condition. In such cases, the patient is likely entitled to compensation.
Four factors must be present for a claim to succeed:
- Duty - A healthcare professional agreed to treat you and assumed a duty of care.
- Breach of duty - They failed to provide the required standard of care.
- Direct cause - There is evidence that the breach of duty caused harm or injury, rather than an underlying condition.
- Damages - You suffered physical, emotional or financial harm as a result of the breach of duty.
Clinical negligence claims can be brought against any healthcare worker whose failure to provide the required standard of care causes harm or injury, including those in the NHS and private practice. For example, they could include:
- Medical practitioners - GPs, hospital doctors, surgeons, radiologists or anaesthesiologists.
- Nurses and midwives - Practice nurses, hospital nurses, mental health nurses or midwives.
- Specialised professionals - Dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists or psychiatrists.
What Is the Clinical Negligence Claims Process?
While it is possible to bring a claim without clinical negligence solicitors, successfully proving breach of duty requires specialist legal and medical knowledge. When you contact a solicitor, they will follow a standard process to bring your clinical negligence claim. In brief, this is:
- Initial advice
The first time you speak to your clinical negligence solicitor, they will tell you how long you have to start your claim. Typically, the limit is three years from the alleged date of negligence or the date you realised that negligence had occurred. Your solicitor will also discuss how much compensation you could win and what information they will need from you throughout the clinical negligence claims process.
- Preparation
Your clinical negligence solicitor will gather evidence to support your claim, such as medical records and medical imaging. The records will be carefully sorted and a Chronology produced. At this point, your solicitor will typically consult independent medical experts to assess the quality of the care you received and see whether the evidence will support your claim.
- Financial losses
If medico-legal experts do support a reasonable claim, your clinical negligence solicitor will gather evidence to support your claim, talking to you about what practical and financial consequences have occurred as a result of the index events. Relevant records (such as invoices, employment records and DWP records) will need to be gathered. A Schedule of such losses will be prepared.
- Notifying the defendant
If the independent medical experts say that the evidence will support your claim, your clinical negligence solicitor will send a Letter of Claim to the healthcare professional responsible for the negligence. This will include the reason for the clinical negligence claim, the details of the breach of duty and an indication of the amount of compensation you are seeking. The defendant will have four months to respond; if they make admissions of fault, then the case can usually be negotiated to a settlement, though this may take a little time. If no admissions are made, it may be necessary to issue court proceedings.
- Court proceedings
If a claim is issued in court, the court process of exchanging all evidence can take 18–24 months to complete. Often, a case is negotiated to settlement during this period, and very few clinical negligence claims ever go to trial.
- Trial
In the rare event that a trial has to take place, a judge will decide whether a case should succeed, i.e., whether the defendant is liable or not. If the trial is a ‘full trial’, the judge will make a judgment about the amount of compensation to be paid. However, for very high-value cases, it is not uncommon for the trial to be ‘split’ to keep trial costs down. If a ‘split’ trial occurs, a judge will only decide on liability. After the liability trial, if the claimant has won, then the parties usually negotiate the amount to be paid. If this fails, then a second, ‘quantum trial’ takes place.
Specialist Support from Clinical Negligence Solicitors
Please contact us to start a conversation about your potential claim, or browse our help and advice pages for more information about the types of clinical negligence claims we cover. We conduct most of our claims under Conditional Fee Agreements, so you do not have to worry about how you will afford to bring a claim. You will have our full support and attention, and have nothing to lose in speaking to us.