Many service personnel sadly experience limb loss while on active combat, but this can happen in other situations too, as our expert solicitor Lindsay Wise explains.
The loss of a limb can also be caused by unacceptable medical care, whether in a GP setting, an NHS hospital or a private hospital. The need for such surgery is usually due to service personnel suffering from a particular medical condition, the most common being:
- Diabetes
- Blood vessel disease
- Cancer
- Infection
- Excessive tissue damage caused by trauma.
If questions arise about whether medical treatment received was negligent, you must prove that the loss of a limb was avoidable. A common misconception is that if you’ve received poor medical care, you must have suffered injury as a result, but that’s not always the case.
You must prove that your treating medical practitioner either didn’t do something they should have done, or did something they shouldn’t have. You must also prove that any poor care identified caused you injuries sufficient to justify the legal costs in bringing a claim.
The law aims to put you in the same position you would have been if not for the negligence. This can only be achieved through monetary compensation, with some claims exceeding a million pounds.
Depending upon whether a claim involves upper or lower limb loss, compensation may cover the costs of:
- An adapted vehicle
- The purchase of an adapted property
- Equipment to assist with day-to-day living
- A private care package
- Private therapies and medical treatment
- Prosthetic limbs.
Compensation covers the loss of earnings arising as a result of the loss of a career. This can include the associated loss of promotion and pension, for which expert evidence is obtained from employment consultants who specialise in careers in the Armed Forces.
Compensation also addresses how negligence has affected your life and how hobbies may have changed. It’s both a forensic analysis and an holistic approach, as the loss of a limb doesn’t have to mean the loss of independence.
Further reading
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