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Contacting A Medical Negligence Solicitor For The First Time

Your initial contact will either be by completion of a form on their website, by telephone or in person. However contact is first made, they will need some basic information from you. You should obtain as much of this information as possible, but if you cannot obtain it all you should still make contact with the solicitor as the solicitor might be able to help you to obtain any missing evidence.

At the offset you will need:

Your personal details

The details of your claim (the treatment that went wrong, failure to diagnose etc)

The name (s) of the treating medical team The dates of any treatment (or lack of it)

Why you believe you might be able to make a medical negligence claim

Details of your income and assets to assess the funding options available to you

What Next?

Once you have made initial contact the solicitor may be able to provide you with their initial opinion on the merits of your case, but be warned that medical negligence claims are often not as straightforward as other negligence claims so they might not immediately be able to provide you with their opinion.

You may be asked to provide a signed form of medical authority as your solicitor may well want to review your records before providing you with an opinion. This is perfectly normal in any medical negligence claim as the medical records often provide vital and valuable evidence to support your claim.

If they still cannot assess your claim, a medical report can be obtained to provide an opinion as to whether you have a good claim for medical negligence.

Your solicitor will decide whether to take a claim for you, and if he does he will advise you of the funding options available to you.

Funding

There are a variety of funding methods available for medical negligence claims, including:

Public funding (if you qualify financially)

Legal Expense Insurance - you might have the benefit of your legal costs being covered by a policy of insurance, known as a legal expense insurance policy. This might be an additional benefit of your home insurance policy. Your solicitor will want to review these insurance policies to see if you have any insurance cover.

Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) - your solicitor might be able to act under a CFA, often referred to as a No Win, No Fee agreement. You might need to pay for some of the expenses (such as the medical evidence) or an insurance policy might cover these costs

Private funding - if nothing else is available, you might be able to pay in instalments

Your solicitor will explore all funding options for you so that you can decide whether to proceed with a claim.

Summary

It is now relatively easy to find a solicitor specialising in medical negligence claims and to ask for an initial assessment of the merits of your claim. There are also far more funding options available now which might allow you to proceed with your claim.

Glynns are Medical Negligence Solicitors offering a free guide to medical negligence claims at http://www.glynns.co.uk/medical-negligence.php . They are Bath Solicitors and you can find them at http://www.glynns.co.uk . Nick Jervis is a solicitor (non-practising) and a consultant to Glynns Solicitors.

Article Source: Medical Negligence Claims Process Guide