What does actually constitute nursing home abuse or medical negligence?

It is an overview of different grounds for putting medical negligence claims against nursing/care centres. What might be the possible causes and how to go about such claims have also been illustrated here.

Have your relatives or parents ever experienced some nursing and care home medical negligence while being admitted in some nursing centre? All residential nursing centres are to abide by the standards defined by “Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety”, so if anybody gets injured due to some abuse or medical negligence there, he can legally claim for compensations against it. Any medical incompetence, error or negligence that makes the residents suffer from following conditions can justify a medical negligence claim against a nursing home. These conditions include: malnutrition or dehydration; injuries arising from lifting or handling errors; infections resulted from poor hygienic environment; physical or psychological distress caused by medical negligence; broken bones or fractures due to falling or tripping; or side effects of poor medicine administration.

Most of the public and private nursing centres in United Kingdom offer exceptional levels of care to their residents and patients; however, a dramatic increase in nursing and care home abuse cases clearly indicates that not all nursing centres are working in well being of their residents. Most of the times, the nursing centre medical negligence cases arise owing to utter inattention on part of nursing staff, for instance patients and residents suffer from dehydration or malnutrition because nursing staff is overlooking or ignoring the probability that any medical attention might be needed. During the course of last 5 years, the rate of medical negligence claim against a nursing home is rising rapidly. In severe cases, such abuses result in detrimental injuries to the patients. The main reason behind such injuries is untrained nursing staffs who fail in handling the patients adequately often leading to severe damages and undue injuries to them.

All nursing centres in UK are to follow the guidelines stipulated by DHSSPS, and ‘Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority’ is in charge of monitoring their performance more than once a year to ensure that no nursing and care home abuse is there and all management and environmental standards are being followed. Despite such rigorous monitoring, things often go wrong creating possibility for undue suffering and reduced quality of living for the residents of nursing centres. If it is so, medical negligence claim against a nursing home can be pursued. Whether you pay nursing home fee or not, it is your legal right to expect standard care and living for your loved ones admitted in these centres. You must check whether they have adequate staffs which are adequately trained in nursing the patients. If nursing home is understaffed, or has some inexperienced nurses who are not capable and qualified enough to properly take care of patients admitted there, it actually constitutes nursing and care home abuse which is legally reprehensible.

In case if a person admitted in a nursing home faces some injuries or other problems owing to utter medical negligence by nursing staff, the victim himself or someone from his family can initiate claim against a nursing home. It must be shown how the nursing home has been negligent in providing standard care to its residents and in what way this negligence has been damaging for the person in question.

The court evaluates the stated medical negligence in view of defined standards of care and judges how much nursing and care home abuse has occurred. All the damages and injuries borne by a person as a consequence of being negligently treated at a nursing home are calculated in terms of compensations that the victim can win through his claim against a nursing home. However, it is better to hire a qualified medical negligence solicitor who has good success record in handling similar cases and who can ensure winning your deserved compensations.