THE SHORT ANSWER
Medical negligence, also called clinical negligence, is care that falls below an acceptable standard and causes harm that could have been avoided. Everyone who treats you owes you a duty of care, whether on the NHS or privately. The standard is not perfection, it is what a reasonably competent professional would have done at the time.
You may feel that something went wrong with the treatment or care you received. Before anything else, it helps to know what the word negligence actually means in law, because it is narrower than most people expect and it does not mean what it sounds like.
What counts as medical negligence?
Medical negligence is care that falls below an acceptable standard and causes harm that could have been avoided. Care that was poor but caused no harm is not a negligence claim, and harm that happened despite good care is not one either.
You may see it called clinical negligence instead, the two terms mean the same thing. Clinical negligence is the term the NHS and the courts tend to use. Medical negligence is the term most people search for.
Who owes you a duty of care?
Everyone who treats you owes you a duty of care. That includes your GP, a surgeon, a nurse, a midwife, a paramedic, a pharmacist and a dentist. It applies whether you were treated on the NHS or paid privately, and it applies in a hospital, a surgery, a clinic or your own home.
You do not have to prove that the duty existed, if someone treated you, they owed you one. The questions that actually get argued about the standard of the care and the harm it caused.
What standard is the care judged against?
Not perfection, the standard is what a reasonably competent professional in the same field would have done at the time, judged without the benefit of hindsight.
It is easy to look back at a decision once you know how things turned out and call it obviously wrong. The law asks a harder question: what did this professional know, or what should they have found out, at the moment they made the decision?
Two patients have the same serious reaction to a medicine.
For the first, the allergy had never been recorded and nobody had any way of knowing about it. For the second, it was written clearly in their notes and was missed.
The harm is identical, only the second may be negligence.
This is why two people with the same injury can get two completely different answers about whether they have a claim. The injury is not what decides it, the care is.
Does a claim mean the doctor was bad at their job?
No, and this stops a lot of people from asking questions they are entitled to ask.
Capable, conscientious professionals can still make a mistake that falls below the standard. A claim is not a judgement on someone’s career or character, and it is not a disciplinary process. It is a way of establishing what went wrong and putting right the financial and practical consequences.
In NHS claims, compensation is paid through the NHS indemnity schemes, not by the individual doctor or nurse who treated you.
If what you want is an explanation or an apology rather than compensation, a complaint may be the better route, or you may want both. There is a separate guide on whether to complain. claim or do both.
Related guides - Read here
Not sure whether what happened to you counts?
Most people are not sure, and that is perfectly normal place to start from. Tell us what happened in your own words and we will explain your options. If we do not think there is a claim, we will tell you that too.
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Yes, the two terms mean the same thing in law. Clinical negligence is the term used by the NHS and the courts. Medical negligence is the term most people use when they search.
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No. Everyone who treats you owes you a duty of care, including nurses, midwives, paramedics, pharmacists, dentists and other healthcare professionals, in the NHS or privately.
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A claim needs harm that could have been avoided. Care that fell below the standard but caused no harm may be worth raising as a complaint, but it will not normally support a claim for compensation.