Are you concerned that you may have been harmed as a result of inadequate care from your General Practitioner? Do you think you may have a GP claim? Loss of confidence between GP and patient is particularly distressing, because most people expect to have a long term professional relationship with their GP. A GP is meant to be effective in treating minor illnesses, a support in living with a long term condition, and a gateway to specialist care when that is necessary.
Unfortunately, with an average of 6000 patients for each GP surgery there is more pressure than ever on doctors to meet their patients’ needs. Some GPs see more than 100 patients a week. This means they can only spend 5 minutes or so with each one and if a consultation takes longer than that, the next appointments may have to be rushed.It is understandable that sometimes the care provided by GPs may not be as good as you are entitled to expect; this is clinical negligence. Unfortunately, the result of inadequate care can be serious.
If you are in this situation you may be thinking about making a GP claim for clinical negligence. If your health has been compromised by inadequate care from your doctor, you are entitled to bring a GP claim
If I make a GP claim will if affect my future care?
What can I claim?
The problems that you have encountered as a result of the failures in your treatment
The amount of care that you needed. The expenses that you have incurred. Types of GP claim. Misdiagnosis eg meningitis misdiagnosed as flu. Failure to diagnose. Delayed treatment or failure to treat. Incorrect treatment. Failure to refer to a specialist. Prescription errors - mistakes are sometimes made when prescribing drugs and people can be given inappropriate medicines. Another common problem is when serious side effects of drugs are not made clear to patients.
Our experience of dealing with GP claims. Failure to check blood pressure. Failure to refer - testicular cancer. Failure to refer - Deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism M v Dr W (2006)
The content of this page is a summary of the law in force at the date of publication and is not exhaustive, nor does it contain definitive advice. Specialist legal advice should be sought in relation to any queries that may arise.