Hertfordshire Medical Negligence

Posted on by

Do you live in Hertfordshire? Have you or a loved one suffered an injury because of a medical mistake?

You could be entitled to claim compensation and the specialist team of medical negligence solicitors here at Bonallack and Bishop can help you win that compensation.

UPDATE West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust – slammed as “inadequate”

The recent report on the trust by the Care Quality Commission [CQC] dated 10 September 2015 makes dreadful reading.

Let’s start off with its overall description. The hospitals run by the trust are simply “inadequate”.

But what does that actually mean? Well first of all it the second worst rating possible. The worst rating would be “no rating or rating suspended”. The CQC themselves describe “inadequate” as meaning “performing badly and we’ve taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.”

And going into more detail, the report doesn’t get any better. The five main areas of service provided by the hospitals are described as follow;

  • Safety – Inadequate
  • Effectiveness – Requires improvement
  • Levels of care – Requires improvement
  • Speed of Response –  Requires improvement
  • Leadership – Inadequate

And ratings for the three individual hospitals run by the trust were little better.

Hemel Hempstead General Hospital  was classified as “Requires improvement”, whilst the other two hospitals –  St Albans City Hospital and Watford General Hospital were both considered even worse – being described as “Inadequate”.

All in all very worrying for anyone living in Hertfordshire who has to rely on the medical services provided by these three local hospitals.

HERTFORDSHIRE – A HISTORY OF RECENT MEDICAL ERRORS

Sadly, Hertfordshire hospitals have seen a steady catalogue of really serious mistakes in the last few years. Here are just 4 of them;

  • Stevenage Lister Hospital required 20,000 cancer smear tests to be re-checked after one of the tester’s results dropped below the minimum 90% accuracy target for accuracy. It is estimated that about 1000 women would have to come in for a second test. The original tests were taken at Stevenage Lister Hospital, and although the samples were actually tested at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City’s QE II Hospital between July 2013 and March 2014, the need for retesting wasn’t announced until February 2015
  • January 2014 saw a disappointing report on Watford General Hospital by the Care Quality Commission – Britain’s hospital regulator. As part of a routine inspection, the hospital met the required standard on only one category “Respecting and involving people who use services”. It stated that action was needed on the remaining five categories which were;
    • Care and welfare of people who use services
    • Cleanliness and infection control
    • Staffing
    • Assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision
    • Records
  • A report in October 2015 on ‘never events’ during surgery (i.e. events that should never have happened with proper medical care) found that the East And North Hertfordshire NHS Trust [responsible both for the Stevenage Lister Hospital and QE II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City]  was rated second-worst nationally – with mistakes including surgery on the wrong finger and a swab having been left inside a patient after a clinical procedure
  • January 2015 saw West Hertfordshire NHS Trust apologise for an incredible ‘wrong body’ mix-up – when having been told that his father had died, a man was taken to see his father’s body – but actually shown that of another recently deceased patient. The report from the NHS Trust failed to identify at which of the 3 general hospitals belonging to the trust [St Albans City, Watford General, or Hemel Hempstead], the incident occurred.

Sadly, these errors are just the tip of the iceberg. Hertfordshire hospitals seem to have a high level of medical mistakes.

However here at Bonallack and Bishop [this website is run by us, not by claims management company], our team includes a solicitor who was previously a fully qualified highly experienced nurse. So you can be sure that our team really understand claiming compensation for medical errors.

We are more than happy to represent people living in Hertfordshire – in fact, we are currently running medical compensation claims for a number of clients in Hertfordshire.

YOUR MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE CLAIM – HOW WE CAN HELP YOU

  • FREE first phone consultation
  • FREE first appointment
  • Your claim will be run throughout by a named specialist solicitor – not a call centre junior
  • No win, no fee available to run your claim – so you won’t need to worry about racking up a big legal bill.
  • Home and hospital visits for those who cannot travel

LIVE IN HERTFORDSHIRE? THINKING OF A MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE CLAIM? CALL NOW

Don’t delay talking to a solicitor – it’s important to know that time limitation periods apply to every medical compensation claim – so leaving getting legal advice for too long could result in you losing out on the compensation you are due.

For FREE initial advice and a FREE 1st appointment from expert Solicitors you can trust

  • Call our team now FREE on FREEPHONE 0800 1404544
  • Or use the contact form below