Hospitals are busy places. Most NHS hospitals provide a range of medical services. A patient may come into the hospital at A&E (accident and emergency) and then be treated by other departments, such as radiology (for x-rays and scans), orthopaedic surgery, and pharmacy. Depending on their medical condition, they may be referred by their GP directly to a specialist department, such as maternity, cardiology (heart), or oncology (cancer).
There are often many stages to a patient’s treatment, including referral, triage (deciding on their priority for treatment), conversations, examinations, tests or investigations, interpretation of results, diagnosis, treatment, and decisions about when to admit the patient to hospital or discharge them home. At each stage the doctor, nurse, midwife or other healthcare provider must provide care of an acceptable standard. If substandard care at any stage causes serious injury to the patient, they may be entitled to make a claim for compensation.
The NHS takes responsibility for the errors of its hospital employees. Where a claim arises because a member of NHS staff in a hospital has caused an injury to a patient by providing negligent treatment or care, the NHS organisation (or trust) which employs them becomes the defendant to the patient’s compensation claim. The legal claim is then defended or settled by the NHS defence organisation, NHS Resolution.
Where a patient is injured as a result of negligent private medical care, the doctor or health professional who provided the care is responsible for the consequences of their negligence, including any claims. They will usually be represented by their own defence organisation, which will meet the cost of any successful claim. The hospital which provided the facilities or location where the treatment took place will not take responsibility for the individual doctor’s mistakes. The hospital may, however, be liable for any harm caused by their employees, facility or equipment.
When making a medical negligence claim for injury caused by private medical treatment, great care must be taken to identify and notify the correct defendant or defendants to the claim.
