In recent years, more and more doctors are practicing in the UK outside the National Health System, which is giving patients better control of their own healthcare. However, this has been traditionally costly, which means that unless patients are in the upper socio-economic bands of society in England and Wales, they are simply going to be unable to afford private care. While you have new options in private health insurance, that is also costly and a cost above and beyond what you already are paying as a taxpayer if part of the NHS. If you are wondering why the NHS sees more complaints and claims than private care physicians, here is some of what you should know and how the NHS is redressing the situation.
A Brief Look at Medical Negligence UK Claims
When seeking to understand the most common medical negligence claims UK, it helps to understand that most claims arise from delayed care, wrong diagnoses and errors in medication. Since most taxpayers belong to the NHS, it is only logical that a medical negligence claim is filed against the NHS. Understandably, with the huge number of patients the UK is responsible for treating, a lack of funding and an even greater lack of physicians and healthcare providers, the number of medical negligence claims will rise proportionately.
The NHS is being overwhelmed in responding to suits brought about due to medical malpractice, and as a result, even claims can be delayed in processing. Often, your only recourse is to hire a team of medical negligence solicitors and medical negligence experts to file for you with the courts. The best medical negligence solicitors are able to get a timelier resolution simply because this is their specialty and they know how to work within an overburdened system. As our friends across the pond would say, they know the ropes.
Don’t Be Dismayed at Delays in the System
To get an idea of just how slow the system can be and how backlogged the courts are, consider statistics from 2007 – 2008. In the year 2007, there were 6,669 claims closed, but only 5,470 filed. What does that tell you about the holdover from the previous year? More than 1,000 claims had to await an outcome due to a system that is taxed beyond its limits. As of that time, the NHS Litigation Authority was taking approximately 1.5 years to resolve a medical malpractice claim and the holdup would have gone on much, much longer if it hadn’t been for medical negligence lawyers acting on behalf of their clients.
In an attempt to avoid the high cost of litigation, the NHS Litigation Authority was settling approximately 95 percent of claims outside the courts. However, medical negligence solicitors often recommend not accepting that payment if the outcome deserves a greater settlement. In other words, if you are offered a settlement by the NHS which you feel is insufficient to cover the losses you sustained, fight it with all you have. Considering a no win, no fee team of medical negligence experts such as those from www.the-medical-negligence-experts.co.uk/, who offer an immediate advice line for potential clients, can help you recover your losses and speed up the process of the claim.
Why the NHS Is Responsible for Medical Negligence Claims
Here is one issue which many in the UK are seeking to understand and why it often takes a solicitor to untangle it for them. It all involves tort law and the relationship between the NHS, doctors, and patients. In this system, the NHS indemnifies their physicians, and in so doing, carries all the liability which would be filed directly against those doctors in other nations. It is common to read about multimillion-pound settlements in other countries, but those types of awards are not seen in England and Wales. The system operates within a specific budget and because of this, most claims are limited to around £20,000 when settled outside of litigation and the entire fiscal budget is often less than one claim filed in countries like the United States. To put it briefly, the doctor is working for the NHS that, as the employer, bears the responsibility.
Common Problems the NHS Must Address
When looking to understand how the NHS is responding to a critical number of claims being filed, there are common problems they must redress. Of those problems, it is apparent that a one-and-a-half year wait to resolve a claim is unacceptable. Next on the agenda should be finding ways to avoid the costs involved in terms of paying out legal fees to their team of solicitors and lawyers while seeking ways to avoid claims in the first place. Also, there is a huge cost in diverting the clinical care professional who is the basis for the claim to non-clinical areas. There is a huge cost involved in moving clinical professionals away from clinical care.
The huge number of claims is also affecting the morale of NHS staff and clinicians while eroding public confidence in the system. Taxpayers are paying the cost of healthcare and the cost of claims, and they expect due diligence in the care they receive. There is a sense of secrecy and defensiveness underlying the way in which the NHS operates, so greater transparency should be on the agenda. Yes, the government has made some progress in this task, but more is needed. There is also a need to offer better explanations to patients who suffered due to medical negligence. Not only are explanations not forthcoming but apologies are often non-existent. Taxpayers have a right to know why and that government is not a party to covering up the misdeeds of their clinical professionals.
What to Look Forward To
In an effort to begin addressing these complaints, there is a new programme only in infancy stages which was legislated in recent years to find solutions to ongoing problems. The Secretary of State for Health has been granted the authority to oversee this new programme in an effort to reduce the instances leading to medical negligence claims while seeking to provide greater transparency and communications with the general public.
As with anything government attempts to accomplish, the process will be painfully slow. In the meantime, claims keep coming in, patients are dissatisfied with answers they are not being given, and many avoidable fatalities result from misdiagnoses, delay in care and error in medication. Resolutions are also slow in coming and the wait time for settlement of claims is no better than it was in research conducted more than a decade ago.
As far as claimants are concerned, they want answers and they want them now. Not only can medical negligence experts help to achieve a speedier outcome, they can also demand an explanation of what went wrong and why. Patients within the NHS have a right to professional clinical care and when that is not forthcoming, they have a right to know why. They have a right to be compensated for negligence and compensated in a timely manner. Sometimes it takes an expert litigator to get to the bottom of a claim, but that’s what you hire experts for. If you have suffered loss, pain, or suffering from medical negligence, contact an expert today. The NHS may delay, but you should not.