What are the four Ds of medical negligence claims? The Four Ds are all the items that your solicitor has to prove for you to win your medical negligence case. Below we outline what each of these is and what they mean. Finally, your solicitor should show that a patient, or potential patient, to a health care provider or medical professional relationship existed when the alleged negligence took place.
When it comes to medical negligence claims in England and Wales, the first item we’ll look at is the duty of care. This means that the level of care that was performed was below what was expected and that it was done in a way which caused harm or injury. The duty of care can be limited by various factors, such as the type of services provided, any prior experience of the patient or carer, whether it was carried out by a member of the public or private sector and whether any procedures were undertaken incorrectly.
Next, there are two types of medical negligence claims that can be made against a company. These are either due to a breach of a duty of care or a violation of the implied warranty of fitness. Either way, the solicitor handling your claim will need to show that the defendant did not breach a duty of care. To do this, your solicitor needs to prove that the defendant failed to provide a service that was of a high enough standard to render it safe for you to use or that it did not maintain an acceptable standard of safety while you were using the service.
Another of the four Ds is damage or injury to an individual’s reputation. This is used to explain why certain things should have been done differently or why someone should not have been a victim of negligence in the first place. As with proving the necessity of a duty of care, this also uses time limits within which your medical negligence claims specialist must wait before making their claims.
If your solicitor is based in England, Scotland or Wales, they will handle your medical negligence claims process in the same way as those found in the rest of the United Kingdom. One way to make sure that everything runs smoothly is to make sure that your solicitor is licensed in England, Wales and Scotland. They should also have dealt with cases similar to yours in the past. This is especially important if the incident happened some time ago. It is then possible that your claims process could be delayed considerably.
All solicitors will not take on cases involving health and safety at work. The Health and Safety Executive or HSE has specific guidelines that every healthcare professional must follow when handling such cases. In particular, this applies to accidents that happen at work. Suppose your GP or dentist were to claim medical negligence. In that case, the hospital or dental surgery may request the relevant documents to be produced as evidence within the accident claim. This might delay your claim.