Clinical Negligence

Anyone who has suffered as a result of medical treatment can potentially bring a claim. Whether the claim is for hospital negligence, GP negligence, negligent chiropractic or cosmetic treatment, a pharmacy error or a dentist’s mistake – it may be possible for you to bring a claim.

In order to prove a medical negligence claim for compensation, you must be able to show that:-

• The treatment you received fell below a medically acceptable standard (This is called “liability” or “breach of duty”
• The treatment directly resulted in the loss or damage you suffered (This is called “causation” or “avoidable damage”)

If we agree to investigate your potential claim, we would instruct independent medical experts to comment upon the above points.

To bring a medical claim you must succeed on both “liability” and “causation” as set out above.  To assess the strength of any medical claim we will need the following information:

• The name of the medical professional to which the complaint relates
• The date of the allegedly negligent treatment and if that was a long time ago, the date (or approximate date) you first became aware that the treatment provided might have been negligent
• Summary of the alleged medical or dental negligence

Since April 2023, the Duty of Candour has been a legal requirement for all NHS organisations in Wales. It requires them to be open and transparent with service users, when they experience harm while receiving health care.

NHS organisations in Wales are required to:

• talk to service users about incidents that have caused harm
• apologise and support the service user through the process of investigating the incident
• learn and improve from these incidents
• find ways to stop similar incidents from happening again.

If you have been alerted to an incident as a result of the Duty of Candour, you may be entitled to make a claim. Please contact our specialist Clinical Negligence team to discuss your circumstances.

You can find out more about the Duty of Candour here.

If you have a potential clinical negligence compensation claim, there are various options available to
fund your case, including Conditional Fee Agreements (No Win, No Fee), public funding and legal
expense insurance.

It’s important to remember that generally, when it comes to making a clinical negligence claim, legal
action must start within three years of you receiving treatment, but there are some exceptions to
this rule.

Contact us today for an initial discussion and to find out what options are available to you.

Generally, legal action in a potential medical negligence claim must commence within three years of you receiving treatment, although there are certain circumstances where this may not be the case:

• If the claim involves a child under 18, then the claim must be made before their 21st birthday
• If the claimant is suffering from some form of disability, such as cerebral palsy, then there may be no time limit to make a claim
• If the claim involves treatment received more than three years ago, but you only discovered the negligence relatively recently – for instance a delay in diagnosis of a condition or discovery of a retained object – we may still be able to proceed if you are within three years of your “date of knowledge” that you may have been negligently treated

Legal 500 2025

We are proud to be recognised by Legal 500 for our Clinical Negligence work.

Drawing upon ‘strength and depth at all levels’, from partner through to paralegal, Harding Evans LLP can provide a ‘brilliant’ and cost-effective service to private and publicly-funded claimants on cases across all levels of severity brought against medical professionals. Team head Ken Thomas is ‘well-respected in South Wales’, having secured notable settlements and victories for clients over the years in high-profile and complex cases, including with regard to diagnostic delays, birth injury claims and Cauda Equina cases. Emma Scourfield handles a myriad complex brain, amputation, spinal and cerebral palsy cases, often involving multiple expert witnesses, and is widely recognised as ‘one of the stand out solicitors for complex high value clinical negligence cases in South Wales’. Lauren Watkins and Sara Uren, who have come up through the ranks at the firm having trained there, are both versatile clinical negligence lawyers, who ‘work tirelessly for their clients and always secure a good result’. Senior associate Debra King is a ‘tenacious fighter, that leaves no stone unturned’ in pursuit of the optimal result for clients, including in cases of negligence at nursing homes and pressure sore cases, as well as gynaecological negligence and Cauda Equina claims. The ‘bright and diligent’ Settor Tengey re-joined the firm in November 2023, and provides an added perspective gleaned through his most recent work on the defendant side for NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership.

“The brilliant team is very client focused and have particularly diligent and engaged junior lawyers.”

“This is a great clinical negligence team with strength and depth at all levels.”

Chambers 2025

We are delighted to be ranked by Chambers for our work in Clinical Negligence.

Harding Evans has longstanding expertise across the whole gamut of clinical negligence matters. The team possesses particular experience in complex and high-value birth injury claims and brain damage cases, as well as amputation claims. The group displays additional aptitude in mandates involving delayed diagnosis and misdiagnosis.

“The Harding Evans team’s dedication, expertise and unwavering support are instrumental. They are highly impressive.”

“The team offer a diverse range of expertise and seamlessly collaborate to address any legal challenge effectively. They consistently provide prompt and attentive assistance.”

“The team is excellent and has always got time to explain things to me.”