Compensation!

[jandalsinsummer]

Apologies for the attention seeking headline!

my son was in an after school care type situation and sustained a serious injury, unfortunately this had quite a severe effect on him and resulted in months of ongoing treatment and has been really expensive for us. I believe that the organisation was negligent to quite a significant degree. We are hopeful that the effects will not be lifelong but relatively early days yet.

After reading various things I realised that they presumably have insurance and that this kind of thing is one of the situations it is for.

So my question is how do I go about trying to basically get some compensation for him or even for us for all the medical expenses?

I would like the organisation concerned to change their actions as well but tbh I’m really livid about their actions and the effect on him so I would like to get some compensation for him if I can.

second part of the question

my son was misdiagnosed by his treating Doctor who then got the right diagnosis but didn’t give my son the right treatment resulting in ongoing medical issues and costs

I would like to complain about the competence of the Doctor (I believe I can just go to the medical council directly about this) but I am hoping to bring about change in how these injuries are treated can I complain to the medical insurance company myself or do I need a lawyer to do so?
am I more likely to get a better result if I use a lawyer?
am I just likely to have to give anything to the lawyer to cover my costs?

I’ve tried to keep the explanation simple and to keep my son unidentifiable so details are sketchy and I probably just look like I want to take everyone to court. However I would genuinely like the individuals involved to make changes, but as we all know without money and censure being involved they are likely to just offer platitudes, a faux ‘apology’ and get little more than a slap on the wrist.

i am not in the UK but a very similar system.

thanks

Can't advise for outside the UK, but UK based you definitely don't go direct to the medical Council. They deal with serious things that would potentially be strike off-able offences. Things like misdiagnosis is not their remit at all, that is dealt with locally at the hospital itself (we have a team called pals - patient advice liason service that would deal with such things

How long the accident in the afterscho care happens? You must have fill up an incident report when it happens.

So my question is how do I go about trying to basically get some compensation for him or even for us for all the medical expenses?

You need to raise a legal claim with the organisation. This starts with a formal letter before action, if they deny the claim you will need to issue legal proceedings. You will need medical evidence of the injury.

The best thing to do (if you are unable to self-fund your lawyers fees) is to find a firm of solicitors that do personal injury cases on a conditional fee (ie. no win/no fee). Ideally you want a firm familiar with whatever area this injury occurred in.

I would like to complain about the competence of the Doctor (I believe I can just go to the medical council directly about this) but I am hoping to bring about change in how these injuries are treated can I complain to the medical insurance company myself or do I need a lawyer to do so?
am I more likely to get a better result if I use a lawyer?
am I just likely to have to give anything to the lawyer to cover my costs?

This is separate legal claim and may also give rise to a separate compensation if the initial misdiagnosis caused additional pain and suffering or delayed the recovery.

If you are seeing a lawyer about the injury claim, then they can advise you about this.

Complaining about the competence of the dr (this is a separate matter to a legal claim) - I would start with the organisation they work for and see what their complaints procedure is first.
Here is a GMC document about complaining.

https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents/DC6512_Who_to_complain_to___England.pdf_57957369.pdf

I'd speak to a lawyer first if you have a claim of value in relation to the injury becaues they may recommend bringing a legal claim about the dr. If that's right, they you are probably better off addressing that as well via the lawyer rather than 'raising a complaint'.

Generally I'm afraid to say, you are likely to get a better result if you use a lawyer for all sorts of reasons - including that any organisation receiving correspondence tends to take it more seriously if it comes from solicitors as they (rightly) think litigation is more likely than if a person is acting for themselves.

Generally the limitation period for personal injury cases is 3 years from the date of injury - in other words, you need to have issued a legal case in a court before the 3 years from the date of injury is up or your claim fails. If the claimant is minor, the period will run from when they are 18. It's always a good idea to get on with it though because events will be fresher in your memory and the evidence tends to be better and be more persuasive if witness statements are made closer to the date it all happened rather than 2.5 years later.

Ideally you want a firm familiar with whatever area this injury occurred in.

Sorry I realised this wording wasn't clear - I didn't mean geographical area (!!) I meant circumstances of the injury - so if it was at a school, lawyers experienced in dealing with school claims, if it was an industrial accident, lawyers experienced in industrial accidents that type of thing