Surgical Error Claim
A surgical error claim can be made when you have undergone surgery that has gone wrong in a way that results in pain, suffering or loss. In this situation it is necessary to establish that a surgeon has failed in their duty of care.
Duty of care
All medical staff who treat you have a duty of care. This is set out in various formal requirements for nurses, doctors, surgeons and other medical personnel. However these are mostly guidelines, not a set of closely defined rules. So interpretation is often needed to establish whether any failure of duty of care has happened. For example you may experience pain after surgery due to a negligent mistake by the surgeon, but it may be a natural consequence of the surgery. This would need to be established by expert opinion.
Examples of surgical error
- Unnecessary surgery
- Mistakes causing suffering, requiring further surgery
- Unreasonable delay in your surgery
- Surgery done on wrong part of body e.g. wrong hip. This is called a ‘never event’, because it should never occur. But sadly it does happen
- Medical or other items left inside the body by mistake, for example mesh, tongs or scissors. It may be some time before this is discovered.
- Post-surgical infection.
- Cosmetic surgery. All of the above can occur as a result of cosmetic surgery.
How much will my case be worth?
Surgical error claims are often very different. The actual error can be many things, or even a combination of errors, and the scale of the impact it has can vary widely. So it’s not possible or helpful to lay out here what compensation you may be due. This can be better estimated once your case has been reviewed with us.
Have I got a surgical error claim?
It is often difficult to establish whether surgical error or negligence has occurred. But our trained legal advisors have great experience and they can often establish this during your initial free consultation.
Is there a time limit?
The usual time limit is 3 years from the date of knowledge. This is usually taken as the date of surgery. But is open to interpretation. What if you were unaware of the problem for some considerable time? You will need a trained legal advisor to help clarify whether you can still bring a case. The time limit can be different for children and adults with limited mental capacity.
How long will it take
The scale and complexity of a case can vary widely. However we can start to look at how long your case may take during your initial free consultation with us.
Please see our clinical negligence Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
Free initial consultation
We offer a free, no obligation initial consultation. This can be done in a phone call and usually takes no more than half an hour.
Contact us now about your surgical error claim
We can usually assess whether you have grounds to make a claim in this intital consultation.