Your First Contact With A Medical Negligence Solicitor
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 a normal stage in a medical negligence claim as the records will often provide vital information 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.
