Suing the NHS For Emotional Distress

When an individual is injured in an accident, the thoughts that come in are those that can cause fear and anxiety. Physical injuries can also impact the individual emotionally. While it is easier to sue for physical injuries, it may be difficult to make a compensation for emotional distress claim as emotional distress can be difficult to quantify. However, the manifestation and impact of mental distress is very real and disturbing. This is why suing for emotional distress in the UK is an important subject.

Suing the NHS for emotional distress is a very sensitive area of medical negligence claim. This requires the services of an expert stress claim solicitor as this is your best chance to get a deserved compensation.

What Is Emotional Distress Meaning?

It is important for us to understand what emotional distress means before we get to the process of suing for emotional distress in the UK.

Emotional distress can be referred to as mental suffering or anguish which can be caused by an incident or accident, negligence or through intent. Emotional distress claims are regarded as civil lawsuits and so you can consider suing someone for emotional distress if you are able to provide proof to corroborate your claims.

Even where there are no physical damages, you can be awarded damages for distress and inconvenience in negligence. For example, after an unfortunate incident of sexual abuse, the victim can have valid grounds for a claim as a result of the psychological and emotional trauma suffered.

What Can Cause Emotional Distress?

There are different kinds of medical negligence that can lead to emotional distress. 

• Case of medical misdiagnosis
• Wrongful death of a loved one
• Death to child during delivery as a result of negligence
• Negligent mismanagement of a patient’s ill-health leading to complications
• Unnecessary delays in commencing treatment.

The list is not exhausted; therefore, if you or your loved one is suffering from emotional distress as a result of medical negligence, our emotional distress claim solicitors are willing to assist you make a claim for a deserved compensation.

Why Should I Make A Claim?

There are various reasons why you should make distress and inconvenience claims-

For one, it can help to ensure that the NHS takes proper measures to prevent the recurrence of the negligent treatment that must have caused your emotional distress. Oftentimes, we have come to realize that hospitals tend to make the needed changes for improvement in service delivery when claims are made against them. Therefore, it will be important so that another person will not become a victim.

Again, when you make emotional distress claims, you receive compensation for the harm you have suffered. The compensation will provide you the financial aid to access adequate medical care and treatment while you take time off work to heal. It will also cover for expenses and other financial losses you have incurred as a result. You therefore, need to make a claim as your compensation, as this will be very vital towards your recovery.

Suing A Hospital For Emotional Distress

Suing a hospital for emotional distress in order to get compensation for emotional distress UK you or your loved one has suffered requires that you be ready to demonstrate that indeed you suffered an avoidable harm.

While suing the NHS for negligence which has caused you emotional and mental distress, you will need the services of expert NHS solicitors who are well experienced in NHS claims.

You need to speak with your solicitor who will make a legal assessment of your claim and determine if you have a valid claim for emotional distress. Your solicitor will make known to you any documents you need to make available to prove your claims.

Medical negligence claims relating to emotional distress can be difficult to prove and therefore, you will keep the following in mind;

Keep an Injury Diary

This is one of the best ways to keep track of your thoughts and feelings. You need to express yourself and the impact the emotional distress has had on you in your very own words to your lawyer, the judge and jury. It is important you express how you felt and documenting your mental and emotional journey in writing can establish your anxiety, fear and depression after a negligent treatment.

Witness Testimonies From Family And Friends

This is also very important as your family and friends must have noticed how distressing the unfortunate incident has been for you. The testimonies of your friends and family can help the jury understand your plight and know you have truly been affected by emotional distress.

Get an Official Diagnosis From A Medical Expert

An official medical report from a therapist or psychologist will serve as strong evidence to prove your emotional distress claims. The psychologist can be able to diagnose your emotional or mental distress, depression, anxiety disorder or some other mental condition which can serve as evidence to the court.

Add Your Injury Evidence To Your Emotional Distress Claim

If you have suffered physical injuries which have led to the mental anguish and depression you are suffering, it is important you include documents to prove this such as diagnostic reports, test results, scans, X-rays or any other medical report that shows the severity of your physical injuries.

Secure The Services Of A Personal Injury Lawyer Or NHS Negligence Solicitor

To successfully make a negligence claim or personal injury claim for depression, emotional distress, you will need to work with a specialist personal injury lawyer or medical negligence claims solicitor.

Your best chances to secure a settlement payout. It will not be in your best interests to represent yourself as that will put even more stress on you. Furthermore, you may not be conversant with legal proceedings.

When you come to us for legal representation, we do our very best to lift your burden and make the entire claims process stress free for you while you focus on your recovery.

What Should My Claim Prove?

Your stress and anxiety compensation claims should be able to prove two main things which are liability and causation.

Liability: Here it is important to show that your GP, doctor or other medical professional was negligent in his duty of care towards you. It needs to be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the medical professional provided you with substandard care.

Causation: After liability has been demonstrated, a direct link between liability and causation should be established. If this cannot be proven, then your claim cannot be successful.

It is therefore important to note that negligence alone is not enough to make a claim. There has to be a consequence of negligence.

Can You Claim For Depression?

Of course you can. If you have suffered depression as a result of negligent treatment from the NHS or any medical practitioner, then we can actually make a claim for depression. The same goes for any form of emotional distress caused by medical negligence.

Can I Sue Social Services For Distress?

The answer is simply yes. Where your distress or mental anguish was as a result of negligent treatment from social services, then you may consider suing social services UK. It is important that you contact your stress claim solicitors to guide you on what you have to do to make an emotional compensation claim.

Time limits for suing someone

The time limit for making emotional distress claims according to the Limitation Act of 1980 is three years from the date of the negligent treatment or your date of knowledge.

• In a case where the victim of emotional distress has become physically and mentally incapacitated, such a person will be allowed enough time to heal and then bring up their claims.

However, you can make claims on behalf of an emotionally distressed or incapacitated loved one rather than wait until they are able to make claims by themselves. This is because the earlier medical negligence claims are made, the easier it is to recall events as they happened and access the relevant documents to make your claims. You can read more about time limits here.

Our NHS solicitors are very much available to assist you understand how you can make claims for a loved one if you have concerns about this.

Compensation For Stress And Anxiety UK

There is no fixed compensation amount for emotional pain and suffering. Several factors will need to be considered which include the severity of your mental anguish, it’s impact on your health, how long you have suffered and future prognosis, loss of inheritance, income and other financial losses as a result of your suffering.

Also, the cost of further treatments, rehabilitative care, hiring caregivers and any accommodation adjustments costs.

However, using our emotional pain and suffering injury to feelings calculator, we are able to give you an estimate of what you can get as compensation for your claims.

No Win No Fee Against NHS

At Medical Negligence Direct, we handle all NHS negligence, emotional distress and anxiety claims under our no win no fee policy.

Under this policy legally known as Conditional Fee Agreement, we will proceed to represent you at no financial risk to you. This means, you don’t need to make a legal fee payment before we can represent you and you are also protected from paying legal fees even if the case is unsuccessful. 

However, at the end of a successful emotional distress claim, we will deduct 25% of your total compensation as “success fee”.

We therefore encourage you not to put off seeking redress for the emotional and mental distress, anxiety and depression you or a loved one has suffered. We are here to help share in your pain and see that you are well compensated.