Have you, or a family member, been the victim of a medical error at Hemel Hempstead Hospital?

If the answer is yes, you could be entitled to claim compensation. But for the best chances of a successful claim, you’re going to need an accredited specialist medical negligence solicitor. And at the time of writing, not only is there no such solicitor in Hemel Hempstead, but there’s no such specialist anywhere in the whole of Hertfordshire.

But we can help – the specialist team of accredited medical negligence solicitors here at Bonallack and Bishop [the law firm who run this website] can help you win that compensation.

The statistics make it clear how few genuinely independently accredited specialists there are – out of over 100,000 solicitors nationwide, just 180 have been accredited by the other leading panel for medical negligence solicitors [for details see below] and our team is led by one of them. And another member of the team, prior to qualification as a solicitor, was a highly experienced nurse.

What’s more we regularly run cases in Hertfordshire.

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD HOSPITAL – A HISTORY OF RECENT MEDICAL ERRORS

Hemel Hempstead Hospital sees over 100,000 patients every year, and thankfully most of them receive excellent treatment. But unfortunately there have been a series of worrying mistakes made at the hospital recently,and indeed throughout Hertfordshire, some of which have given rise to medical negligence claims.

Here are just four causes of real concern.

• Latest CQC inspection report dated 10 September 2015
  The recent report by independent hospital regulator, the Care Quality Commission is not good news for local people. In short, the overall conclusion was that the hospital “requires improvement”.Of the four main areas looked at by the report, where there was enough information available to the sea QC, three out of four were described as substandard. In particular they found the following; 
  •  Safety – Requires improvement
  •  Speed of Response –  Requires improvement
  • Leadership – Inadequate

The only good news was that overall, the level of care was described as good.

However things got no better when the CQC went into more detail, looking at particular services. Of the only two services where there was enough information, both outpatients and A&E were both described as “requiring improvement”.

All very worrying if you live in Hemel Hempstead and require medical care from your local hospital.

• However sadly the latest 2016 report was nothing new.
  Respected hospital statistics website Dr Foster had issued a major report, covering patient deaths in NHS Trusts in England between April 2012 and March 2013. The report revealed that 16 NHS Trusts had higher death rates than would be expected among patients, and others performed badly on other factors which may contribute to patient deaths. One of the poorly performing Trusts was West Hertfordshire Hospital NHS Trust, which is responsible for three hospitals – Watford, St Albans and Hemel Hempstead General Hospital.

Dr Foster looked into a range of hospital statistics such as a raw measure of how many people died during their hospital stay, how many died post-surgery, the numbers of patients how died within 30 days of being discharged from hospital and the deaths among low-risk patients who would have ordinarily be expected to survive. All of these figures showed that 10 hospital Trusts have one or more individual sites which have a death rate which is higher than the average for that particular Trust area.

• Then in January 2015,  West Hertfordshire NHS Trust had to apologise for a horrible error. A man, after he had been informed that his father had died in hospital, was taken to seize father’s body – to pay his last respects. However some sort of mistake occurred and the man was actually shown the body of not his father – but of another patient who had recently died. The trust refused to identify which of the three hospitals they run was responsible for the error.

• This followed a series of earlier errors where 810 suspected cancer patients were discharged, between January 2010 and November 2013, without having been seen. It is believed that at least one person died directly as a result of this failure and the others all needed to have their case reviewed. The Government’s Care Quality Commission has been looking into these failures.

Even Hemel Hempstead hospital’s own Facebook page fails to inspire confidence. At the time of writing this article, the latest post from a patient read as follows:

“There does not appear to be any one at Hemel Hospital or within the trust who knows how to deal with complaints , or is it that they just cannot be bothered ?”

Unsurprisingly, in 5 months, no one from the hospital has bothered answering this post on their own website.

Doesn’t give you much confidence does it?

WHY APPOINTING A SPECIALIST MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE SOLICITOR IS SO IMPORTANT

Click here to find out more about why you need a specialist medical negligence solicitor – and how you can identify one.

Click here to find out what a medical negligence solicitor does – and why genuine expertise is so important.

VICTIM OF MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE AT HEMEL HEMPSTEAD HOSPITAL? CALL US NOW

Strict time limitation periods apply to all medical negligence claims – so don’t delay getting in touch with us.

And you don’t need to worry about paying your legal bill with our No Win No Fee agreements.

For FREE initial advice and a FREE 1st appointment from specialist Medical Negligence specialists you can trust:

 • Call our team now FREE on FREEPHONE 0800 1404544

• Or use the contact form below