Nursing Care Negligence Claims

Whether in hospital, a care home or your own home, nurses are often the people who have the most contact with you and your loved ones when you need medical care or ongoing care support. Any failures in the care nurses provide can therefore have a very negative impact on your or your loved one’s health and wellbeing.

If you believe you or a loved one have been harmed as a result of negligent nursing care, claiming compensation is often the only way to help mitigate the negative consequences and ensure all the appropriate help and support is made available.
Wolferstans’ medical negligence solicitors regularly work with individuals and families affected by negligent nursing care, giving us a high level of expertise in these often complex claims. We can help you build your case the right way from the outset, ensuring no detail is missed and giving you the best chance of a fair outcome.

Using our experience, we can provide a clear assessment of the strength of your claim and how much compensation you are likely to be able to secure. Our goal is to give you all the information you need to decide how you want to proceed and help you avoid the risk of under-settling your claim.

Our medical negligence team is particularly skilled in non-confrontational dispute resolution, meaning we can usually resolve claims quickly and at the lowest possible cost, while allowing you to avoid the stress and uncertainty of a court hearing.

We offer a free initial no obligation consultation during which we will be able to tell you if you have a claim worth investigating further.

To arrange your consultation please contact the new client team on 01752 292204.

Our nursing care claims service

We work with clients all over England and Wales on a wide range of nursing care negligence compensation claims, including those related to:

Mistakes with medication, such as administering the wrong medication, the wrong dosage of using the wrong method of administration
Failure to correctly monitor and/or record key vital signs, such as temperature, heart rate and blood pressure
Failure to keep accurate records, causing important symptoms or deterioration of a patient’s condition from being noticed
Pressure sores
Falls and other preventable injuries
Nursing negligence during surgery

Read about some of the cases we have successfully pursued in relation to nursing care negligence claims.

How nursing care negligence claims work

Our clinical negligence lawyers provide empathetic, sensitive support every step of the way through the entire process of claiming compensation for negligent nursing care.

A typical nursing care claim will involve:

Building your case e.g. applying for medical records, collecting witness evidence and consulting independent medical experts.
Contacting the relevant healthcare provider with the details of your claim.
Ensuring the defendant responds to your claim in a timely fashion.
Assessing the defendant’s response and advising you of your options.
Negotiating with the defendant and/or using alternative dispute resolution (ADR), such as mediation or independent evaluation, to secure a suitable settlement.
Submitting your claim to the relevant court and representing you at a court hearing where required to resolve the matter.

Find out more about the process of making a clinical negligence claim.

Funding a nursing care compensation claim

Figuring out how to cover the cost of a claim should never be a primary concern when deciding whether to seek compensation for negligent nursing care. We make a commitment to help everyone we believe has valid grounds for a claim and will find a funding option that works for you and your situation.

Generally, this means you working with us under a conditional fee agreement. Commonly referred to as ‘no win, no fee’, this allows you to start a claim without paying anything up front towards legal fees and expenses. You will only have to contribute towards these costs if your claim is successful, in which case what you pay will be based on a percentage of the damages secured.

Legal expenses insurance can also be a good way to fund a nursing care negligence claim, depending on your situation. Sometimes offered as an optional extra with home insurance, as well as with some bank accounts and credit cards, this can be worth looking into where available.

To discuss your options for covering the cost of a nursing care negligence claim, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Find out more about funding a medical negligence claim.

Our expertise in nursing care claims

Our clinical negligence lawyers are highly experienced in supporting vulnerable people and their loved ones in pursuing compensation for negligent nursing care. We have been able to secure substantial compensation under even the most challenging circumstances, giving our team the experience you need to achieve success with even the most complex and contentious claims.

Wolferstans is accredited by the Law Society for Clinical Negligence, recognising our particular expertise in this area. We are also Lexcel accredited by the Law Society for excellence in legal practice management and client care.

Various members of our medical negligence team are also on the Law Society and AvMA (Action against Medical Accidents) Specialist Clinical Negligence Panels and have been accredited by APIL (Association of Personal Injury Lawyers) as Clinical Negligence Specialists and Brain Injury Specialists.

Find out more about our medical negligence claims team.

Common questions about nursing care negligence claims

If you need to make a claim for nursing negligence that affected you, there is normally a 3-year time limit to bring a claim. This may be counted from when the negligence occurred or when you became aware of it, depending on the situation.

However, these kinds of claims are often pursued by a friend or relative on behalf of someone else who is not able to bring a claim of their own. In these cases, different time limits will usually apply.

To make a claim for someone under 18 – You will usually have until their 18th birthday. If this is not done, they will then be able to bring their own claim up until their 21st birthday.
To make a claim for someone without the mental capacity to make a claim – There is normally no time limit.
To make a claim with respect to someone who died due to nursing care negligence – Their dependants or representative of their estate will usually have 3 years from the date of death.

Knowing which time limit applies and whether there is still time to make a claim can be complex, so we always recommend speaking to one of our specialist medical negligence lawyers, no matter how long ago the negligence occurred.

The value of your claim will depend on the impact on you or your loved one’s health, wellbeing and lifestyle, as well as any specific costs incurred as a result of the negligence that took place.

Depending on the situation, you can normally claim two types of damages for nursing care negligence:

Special damages – Covering specific financial losses incurred up to the date of settlement. This can include paying for private medical treatment and alternative care arrangements, as well as a range of other expenses.

General damages – Covering non-financial losses (e.g. pain and suffering), as well as expected future financial losses (e.g. paying for ongoing therapy and additional care costs).

Because people who need nursing care are often elderly and/or vulnerable, it is common for them to need the support of friends and family to make a compensation claim for nursing care negligence.

If you need to support a loved one in making a claim, you may want to apply to become their ‘litigation friend’. This means you will have the legal authority to make decisions on their behalf regarding the claim.

To become a litigation friend, you will need to apply to a court and demonstrate that there is a need for you to act in this capacity and that you are a suitable person to do so. If you are already acting for them as their Court of Protection deputy, this will usually be relatively straightforward.

Further information about nursing negligence claims

For more information about nursing care compensation claims and all types of medical negligence claims, please take a look at our news, blogs and our series of helpful leaflets covering specific issues.

Start a nursing negligence claim with us today

To arrange a free initial no obligation consultation and find out more about starting a nursing care negligence compensation claim: