If your wrist fracture was missed by a medical professional, you may be eligible to begin a medical negligence claim. This guide contains information that may be useful to know, such as the eligibility requirements you must meet to begin this kind of claim and the types of documentation that could be useful as supporting evidence.
Can I Claim Compensation For A Wrist Fracture That Has Been Missed?
Additionally, we’ll discuss compensation amounts that could be awarded in successful medical negligence claims and how these payments are calculated.
Furthermore, we will discuss how a solicitor could help you claim by offering you a type of No Win No Fee agreement, which means you can avoid paying upfront fees in order to access their services.
Keep reading to learn more about when you could be eligible to claim. Alternatively, contact our advisers if you have any questions. To reach them, you can:
- Complete the contact form online
- Call 0113 460 1216
- Speak to an adviser using the chatbox
Choose A Section
- When Are You Eligible To Claim For A Wrist Fracture That Has Been Missed?
- How Can A Wrist Fracture Be Missed? – Examples Of Medical Negligence
- Potential Evidence That Could Help You In A Medical Negligence Claim
- What Compensation Could Be Received For A Wrist Fracture That Has Been Missed?
- Why Use Our Panel Of Solicitors To Seek Medical Misdiagnosis Compensation?
- Learn More About Making A Medical Negligence Claim
When Are You Eligible To Claim For A Wrist Fracture That Has Been Missed?
All healthcare professionals owe their patients a duty of care. As such, they must provide the correct standard of care to their patients. A failure to do so could cause a patient to suffer physical or psychological harm that could have otherwise been avoided. This constitutes medical negligence for which you could be eligible to make a claim.
However, not all instances of harm sustained in a medical setting will mean that medical negligence has occurred. For example, a doctor may have performed the necessary examinations on your wrist, listened to your symptoms, and referred you for further tests but your wrist fracture was missed due to it not showing up on an X-ray scan. In this case, the doctor has provided an adequate standard of care so medical negligence hasn’t occurred.
If you would like further information on when you could be eligible to make a medical negligence claim, please get in touch on the number above.
How Can A Wrist Fracture Be Missed? – Examples Of Medical Negligence
To make a medical negligence claim, you must have experienced avoidable or unnecessary harm because a healthcare professional did not provide you with an adequate level of care.
Examples of how this could occur include:
- You might attend the hospital with several clear symptoms of a fractured wrist. However, the doctor diagnoses it as a sprain without examining you or requesting further tests, such as an X-ray.
- An X-ray technician or radiologist could perform an X-ray incorrectly, meaning that your wrist fracture does not show up on the scan.
- Your doctor might fail to interpret an X-ray correctly, missing an obvious wrist fracture on the scan.
- A GP misdiagnosis might involve you attending a doctor’s appointment after experiencing pain in your wrist for a period of time. However, despite exhibiting clear symptoms of a fracture, they fail to refer you for further tests at a hospital.
Speak to our advisers if you have questions about whether medical negligence contributed to your wrist fracture being missed. Alternatively, keep reading to find out about the evidence that could help demonstrate a medical professional did not uphold the duty of care they owed you.
Potential Evidence That Could Help You In A Medical Negligence Claim
Certain evidence can benefit your claim for medical misdiagnosis compensation. For a wrist fracture that was missed, it could be useful to provide evidence such as:
- A copy of your X-ray
- A doctor report or hospital report
- Prescriptions
Additionally, you might be asked to undergo an independent medical assessment, which can help establish facts about the harm you have experienced, including the nature, severity, and future prognosis. The report produced from this assessment can help support your claim.
You must begin the medical negligence claims process within certain a time limit. This is generally:
- 3 years from the date that medical negligence occurred
- 3 years from the date you became aware that medical negligence occurred
Certain exceptions may apply to these time limits. For example, they may be suspended when the claim involves children under the age of 18 or adults who don’t have the capacity to claim.
It’s important to note that the medical negligence solicitors from our panel have a great deal of experience identifying and obtaining evidence that may prove useful in a claim. This is one of the services they offer to claimants, including making sure their claim is put forward within the relevant time frame.
Contact our advisers to learn whether a solicitor from our panel could help you through the different stages of the claims process. Alternatively, keep reading to learn about medical negligence payouts.
What Compensation Could Be Received For A wrist Fracture That Has Been Missed?
A medical misdiagnosis compensation payout could be formed of up to two heads of claim, known as general damages and special damages. General damages compensate you for the suffering caused by medical negligence.
A solicitor will usually turn to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) in order to help them assess how much the general damages aspect of your claim is worth. This document contains guideline compensation brackets for different types of harm.
We’ve provided a table below showing some of these brackets and their accompanying notes. Alternatively, you could use a medical negligence calculator to get an estimate of the compensation you could receive.
| Harm | Guideline Compensation Amount | More Information |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Wrist Injury | £47,620 to £59,860 | Total loss of function in the wrist. |
| (b) Wrist Injury | £24,500 to £39,170 | A permanent and significant disability, though some useful movement may remain. |
| (c) Wrist Injury | £12,590 to £24,500 | Less severe injuries are covered in this bracket. However, they still result in a permanent disability such as ongoing pain and stiffness. |
| (d) Wrist Injury | £6,080 to £10,350 | Largely complete recovery that takes longer than 12 months, though minor symptoms may persist. |
| (e) Wrist Injury | In the region of £7,430 | Colles' fracture that is uncomplicated in nature. |
| (f) Wrist Injury | £3,530 to £4,740 | A plaster or bandage is necessary for a matter of weeks and there is a full or mostly full recovery within 12 months or so. |
| (d) Other Arm Injury | £6,610 to £19,200 | Fractures of the forearm that are simple in nature. |
With this in mind, please remember this information is only guidance. Due to your personal circumstances, you could receive a different award for general damages.
Special Damages In A Wrist Fracture Compensation Claim
Your payout could also include special damages which can reimburse you for the financial losses caused by medical negligence. Examples of these include:
- Lost earnings, past or future
- The cost of buying prescription medications
- Travel expenses
Collecting evidence of these losses can help when claiming them back. This could include receipts, payslips, and travel tickets.
Speak to our advisers to learn more about how a payout for medical negligence is calculated.
Why Use Our Panel Of Solicitors To Seek Medical Misdiagnosis Compensation?
When making a medical negligence claim after your wrist fracture was missed, you could benefit from working with a solicitor. They can use their experience handling claims similar to your own to help you through the claims process. No Win No Fee solicitors in particular can provide financial benefits as you can access their services without having to pay upfront or ongoing fees.
A solicitor on our panel could offer you a Conditional Fee Agreement, which is a kind of No Win No Fee contract. Under the terms of this contract, you typically wouldn’t have to pay for the services your solicitor provides if your claim fails.
Instead, the solicitor would take a success fee at the end of the process, but only if the claim succeeds. This fee is subject to a legal cap, as determined by the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013.
Contact Us For Free Today
Contact our advisers if you have questions about claiming for a wrist fracture that was missed due to medical negligence. They are available 24/7 and can provide a free consultation.
There is no obligation to continue using our services after the discussion ends. However, if our advisers feel your claim is valid and you’d like to proceed, they may be able to connect you with a solicitor from our panel.
To learn more, you can:
- Complete the contact form online
- Call 0113 460 1216
- Speak to an adviser using the chatbox
Learn More About Making A Medical Negligence Claim
More of our medical negligence guides:
- What Are Never Events And How Do I Claim Compensation?
- Could I Claim Compensation For Prescription Errors?
- Can I Claim For A Misdiagnosis Of Lung Cancer?
Further information from other sources:
- Broken Arm Or Wrist – NHS resource detailing the symptoms of a broken wrist
- Ethical Guidance For Doctors – Information from the General Medical Council (GMC) about good medical practice
- NHS Constitution For England – Government guide on the principles and values of the NHS in England
We hope this guide has provided useful information about claiming compensation after a wrist fracture was missed by a medical professional. Reach us using the details above if you have further questions about this kind of claim.
Writer Morgan Filly
Editor Meg McGloughlin
