GP Negligence
Reasons to choose Wilson Browne
- Law Society and AVMA Panel approved
- Direct access to your legal team
- Transparent costs
A General Practitioner (GP) will often be your first port of call if you become unwell.
They are gatekeepers to the rest of the NHS. If your doctor has been negligent then you might have a claim for compensation.
GP’s aren’t specialists, but as the name suggests, have a general medical background. They will be able to look after minor illnesses and injuries but if something more serious comes along, then part of their job is to know when to refer you on to someone else.
A GP might be negligent in the following ways:
- Failing to diagnose you
- Failing to refer you for a cancer investigations (within two weeks)
- Failing to refer you to a specialist
- Not ordering tests or acting on the results of tests
- Prescribing the wrong or too much/little medication
- Not examining you properly
If your doctor is negligent then it could have serious consequences for you. Delays in getting specialist advice or having further investigations will inevitably cause delays in treatment which in some cases can be catastrophic.
Some people are reluctant to sue their doctor as GPs are often family doctors who patients have known for a long time. But if you’ve been affected by negligence of your GP then you are just as likely to need the compensation you are entitled to.
If your GP has been negligent then normally, you have to sue the individual doctor, rather then the surgery. You can also sue a private GP that is paid for yourself or through health insurance such as BUPA.
Our expert team at Wilson Browne Solicitors have lots of experience proving negligence claims against GPs and will be able to guide you through each step of the process.
If you think that you might have suffered negligence by your GP then contact us.
GP Negligence - Case Study
Mrs Doe’s Story*
Mrs J Doe went to see her GP because she had eczema on her left calf that had become red and sore. Her GP thought it was infected and prescribed her some antibiotics. The GP also gave her some dressings.
Three weeks later Mrs Doe went back to the surgery and saw a practice nurse. The nurse re-dressed her leg but told Mrs Doe to see the GP again because she thought she might have a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which is a blood clot in one of the major veins in the leg.
Mrs Doe saw her GP the next day. He documented that she did not have a DVT. 5 days later Mrs Doe became very short of breath and sadly died suddenly.
After Mrs Doe died, a post-mortem was carried out to try to find out the cause of her death. The post-mortem showed that there was a blood clot in her leg and that part of it had broken off and travelled to her lungs. This is a called a Pulmonary Embolism; it is why she was struggling to breathe and what caused her death.
The team at Wilson Browne Solicitors helped Mrs Doe’s family to prove that the GP had not done a thorough enough examination of her leg when she went to see him for the second time. It was proven that if the GP had examined Mrs Doe’s leg properly, he would have realised that she probably did have a DVT and she would have been sent to hospital where she would have received life saving treatment.
Mrs Doe’s family received a six figure sum in compensation.
*not her real name
