UK Hospital Error Claims Solicitors - Claim Help Team

Hospital Errors: All You Need to Know

A hospital error occurs when a patient suffers an injury, loss of life, or loss of quality of life because of negligent actions by medical staff.

Hospital errors are usually the combined result of several mistakes, rather than an isolated incident involving only one doctor or nurse.

The types of hospital errors our solicitors encounter include:

1. Medication Errors

If doctors or nurses administer or prescribe the wrong medication, fail to monitor your condition properly, or don't warn you about known side effects, they could harm you.

Medication errors can occur in nearly every stage of the prescription process:

• When doctors write prescriptions.
• When pharmacists fill out prescriptions.
• When pharmacy technicians complete drug labels.

When multiple parties are involved in the medical process, the chances of errors increase.

2. Problems with Equipment

Hospitals use a wide variety of equipment to diagnose and treat patients. The medical staff must properly maintain this equipment, or it could lead to an error that harms you. For example, if doctors use faulty X-ray machines, CAT scanners, or MRI machines, their diagnoses could be inaccurate or incomplete.

3. Errors Related to Anesthesia

Hospitals use anesthesia to put patients under for surgery. If the anesthesiologist doesn't monitor vital functions, give you enough pain medication, or responds too slowly when your condition changes, it can cause long-term health problems.

Unlike most other hospital errors, anesthesiology mistakes result in death more often than not.

4. Hospital-Acquired Infections

Hospitals have some of the highest concentrations of harmful bacteria in the country. Suppose doctors and nurses don't correctly sterilize equipment, fail to use sterile techniques, or accidentally contaminate a patient's incision site with contaminated instruments. Such can lead to life-threatening infections that cause complications and may require additional surgeries.

5. Missed or Delayed Diagnosis

If doctors fail to diagnose a serious condition, they could cause further harm by administering the wrong treatment. If a hospital staff member doesn't document a condition in your medical records, doctors might not know about it at all. If they don't collect the proper tests or use faulty lab equipment to analyze your results, they could miss out on diagnosing a severe problem.

6. Avoidable Delay in Treatment

When doctors and nurses wait too long to respond to emergencies or urgent care needs, it can worsen health problems and even cause death.

One of the most common types of hospital errors is diagnostic mistakes, which occur when doctors fail to accurately identify a patient's condition. For example, if your doctor suspects you have a heart attack but doesn't perform any tests to confirm this and then gives you the wrong treatment (e.g. antibiotics for a heart attack), the condition could worsen.

7. Inadequate Follow-up after Treatment

If a hospital staff member fails to schedule follow-up appointments or doesn't provide you with enough information about taking care of yourself after treatment, it could lead to long-term health problems.

8. Inadequate Monitoring after a Procedure

If a doctor performs a procedure and doesn't monitor the patient correctly afterward, dangerous complications like infections or internal bleeding could occur.

9. Failure to Act on Test Results

If doctors or nurses don't act on test results, it can delay treatment and cause additional harm to the patient. For example, if a doctor doesn't order a follow-up CT scan after an initial MRI shows signs of a brain tumor, the tumor could grow larger without being treated in time.

10. Failure to Treat Injuries

A failure to treat injury claims may arise when a patient has an injury and does not receive proper treatment for it. This can happen if they are told that waiting is the best course of action or prescribed wrong treatment. The staff's incorrect diagnosis or failure to diagnose can often result in further harm to the patient or in unnecessary surgery.