What To Do After Going Through Medical Negligence

There are a variety of reasons you will visit a hospital or seek medical treatment in your life. It is incredibly unlikely that you will suffer through any medical negligence during this time, but it’s not impossible. This article will go over what you should do after a mistake has happened to you during a medical procedure.

Seek Support

After going through medical negligence, the first thing you should do is seek some support for yourself. You should build up a support network of being you trust, who can help you feel better about a situation.

Support can come in different variations, and what works for you is likely to be something different than what works for someone else. You should look into professional services that can help you manage trauma and relieve negative feelings within your mental health.

One of the most effective means of support you can go for comes in the form of therapy and counselling. This gives you the chance to talk through what’s happened to you, and find ways to manage the emotional pain.

Make An Official Complaint

Once you have gotten yourself some support in some way, then you will need to make an official medical complaint. This helps to log the complaint to an official standard and will be useful evidence for any future cases.

It won’t just be the NHS you can complain about when it comes to medical negligence. Anyone who operates in the medical field, such as in the private healthcare industry, will have the means for official complaints.

Hopefully, you logging this claim will prompt an official investigation to take a closer at your situation to find out exactly what happened. While this might not do you personally any good, it can help prevent anything like this happening again.

Of course, lodging this complaint will be an important part of seeking any compensation for medical negligence, or for bringing someone to justice. To do this, you will need to speak to a solicitor and work with them through your case, which the next section will cover.

Speak To A Solicitor Sooner Rather Than Later

Once you have ensured you have support around you and lodged a complaint, your next step should be to speak to a solicitor. You should try to find a solicitor who deals specifically with medical negligence during your search. If they have experience in this area, then you will feel less anxious going forward as you know your case will be in the right hands.

Speaking to these solicitors will help you determine how much of a case you have for claiming medical negligence. You may wish to claim for a life-altering mistake or want financial support to deal with medical issues that derived from medical negligence.

You may have had something terrible happen to you, such as losing a baby due to poor care during labour. Stillbirths caused by medical mistakes will be devastating, and no words will make up for it, but you should try to speak to a solicitor to try and get justice. Contact experts such as Gadsby Wicks who can talk you through the process. They can explain how long stillbirth claims and medical negligence in general take to settle. You can find out more via https://www.gadsbywicks.co.uk/medical-negligence/birth-injury-claims/stillbirth.

Gather Evidence

Once you have gone through medical negligence in some form, it will benefit you to gather as much evidence as you can. The sooner you start gathering this evidence, the better. With most cases that go to court, it will help you to have evidence related to around the time, no longer than three years after the case.

In fact, most courts may not even deal with cases that are a few years old, so it’s best to act as soon as possible. The evidence that you will need includes records, notes, and any communication you had with healthcare professionals.

Your solicitor will be able to advise you on what sort of evidence you should be looking to collect if you are unsure. They can also talk you through the process on how to acquire this evidence, as there could be a few different sources to investigate into.

Don’t Overwork Yourself

It’s important to note that you shouldn’t overwork yourself during all of this. You will have gone through a traumatic time in your life and overworking yourself may seem like a distraction in the short-term, but this could be doing you more harm than good.

In particular, it may be damaging your mental health. There will be resources available online as well as organisations you can contact for extra help for your mental health. Utilise all the resources you can to not be alone in your struggles.

Look after yourself as the priority, and you may start to see improvements in your life. The important thing is that you don’t go through these challenges alone.