Wilkin Chapman LLP offers you a highly specialised medical negligence service. If you think something might have gone wrong with medical treatment, our expert solicitors will help you pursue your claim. Full legal aid available where appropriate.

While millions of people in this country receive first class medical care each year, unfortunately there is always a small percentage of people who suffer because of a medical accident.

Wilkin Chapman LLP is able to offer a full and highly specialised medical negligence service. Solicitor Brenda Gilligan has over 18 years experience in dealing with medical negligence and personal injury claims. She is a member of The Law Society's Specialist Clinical Negligence Accreditation Scheme and the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), with Senior Litigator status.

We are able to deal with both private and publicly funded cases (formerly Legal Aid) allowing us to offer this service to people who may not have been able to pursue a claim due to financial constraints. We are able to offer full Legal Aid where appropriate.We will also consider whether a case might be suitable for a Conditional Fee Agreement.

Making a claim

Normally, you must make a medical negligence claim within 3 years from the date you suffered an injury, or in some cases, the date you first became aware of an injury. This date could be considerably later than the actual injury itself. An injury can include a misdiagnosis, a failure to diagnose, delay in treatment, or even death. Children have 3 years from their 21st birthday in which to make a claim for injuries which occurred when they were children. For some people, children or adult, there is no time limit. This will be the case where, for instance someone has severe brain damage at birth, or suffers a serious head injury. If the injury means they "lack capacity" such that they could not instruct a solicitor to make a claim themselves, then they might be able to make a claim at any time, even many years after the incident. It is very important to take legal advice as soon as possible if you have any reason to think something might have gone wrong with your treatment. If you leave it too late to claim, you may lose your right to claim altogether.

In order to succeed in a medical negligence action you need to prove in legal terms something called “liability and causation”. It is for you as the claimant, the person making the claim, to prove your case. This means that you have to show that somebody was negligent in their clinical treatment towards you by failing to reach a "reasonable standard of care". The negligence must either cause or contribute to an injury which otherwise wouldn't have happened, or make an existing injury or condition "worse". If there is no negligence, then obviously there is no claim. If there is negligence, but for some reason it does not cause or contribute to an injury, then again, there would be no claim. Both negligence and causation have to be proved.

If you think you may have a claim, but are not sure, please contact Brenda Gilligan for a no obligation chat on 01522 512345