While the medical profession generally provides excellent health care to patients, there are unfortunately cases that give rise to clinical negligence compensation claims . Here, claims management company Claim-Easy ( ) looks at just what constitutes ‘clinical negligence', which cases can lead to successful compensation claims and the best way to go about claiming for this type of incident.

The General Medical Council exists to govern the medical profession; to ensure they carry out their duty of care and, in instances where medical treatment of patients has failed in some way, inform the patient that this is the case. Clinical negligence (formerly known as ‘medical negligence') is the term used to refer to cases where there was a breach in the duty of care in the medical treatment of a patient and where this breach has led to an injury, illness or death of a patient as a direct result. In cases where this can be proved, a clinical negligence compensation claim can be made to seek financial compensation for the patient or for the relatives of a deceased patient. Clinical negligence compensation can even apply to dental treatment or to treatment administered by nurses, midwives and psychiatrists.

Medical claims can arise out of situations as varied as the areas of medicine themselves: accident and emergency, cancer care, operative care, keyhole surgery, gynaecology, plastic surgery and many more areas of medical treatment. The situations that can lead to a breach of a medical professional's duty of care also vary widely. There could be a failed or delayed diagnosis, lack of information provided about the risks of a medical procedure, a mistake made in a surgical procedure or a system error occurring in a hospital's processes. If any of these situations (and more) can be proved to be the fault of the medical professional or body treating the patient and that this led to a serious illness or injury (or a death) then it could be possible to claim compensation for clinical negligence.

Clinical negligence claims are more complicated than most other personal injury claims or accident claims because it can be harder to prove that in all probability the medical professional or body was at fault for an illness or injury than, for instance, the driver in a road traffic accident. Independent medical experts in the field in which the illness or injury falls will have to be consulted to help prove where the fault lies.

Given this, it's vital that patients wanting to pursue a clinical negligence compensation claim receive adequate expert advice from a claims management company that is particularly experienced in this type of claim. Claim-Easy have the experience and expertise to confidently handle what can be difficult compensation claims and work hard on the claimant's behalf to get what is rightfully theirs. All clinical negligence claims managed by Claim-Easy are done so on a no win no fee basis and successful claimants receive 100% compensation. If you would like to find out more, visit .