Cancer Claim Court Process
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We must show both that the doctor / medical professionals made mistakes and also that as a consequence of those mistakes you have suffered injury.
What did the doctor do wrong?
The Court approaches the "what did the doctor do wrong” question in the same way as cases that do not involve cancer. That is by asking the question "would the doctors actions be supported as acceptable by a body of doctors specialising in that area, and if so are their actions logical”.
What difference did the doctors mistakes make?
The "what difference would earlier/different treatment have made” question looks at firstly whether life expectancy has been affected and secondly all other issues.
The Court will only award compensation for a change in life expectancy if we can show that you had a greater than 50% chance of surviving your cancer had you been properly treated and as a result of the failures in treatment now have a less than 50% chance of survival.
Currently there is no compensation awarded if your survival prospects have fallen from say 95% to 55%, or from 45% to 15%. The Court's artificial reason is that in the first example you are still more likely to survive than die and in the second you were more likely to die than to survive even had you been properly treated.
If however your chances of survival have changed from 60% to 45% then the Court would award compensation assuming that you would have survived if properly treated and now will die (even though there is still a 45% statistical chance that you will survive).
The Court has not specified the time period for survival to be taken in considering the statistics and so in each case we have to investigate the statistics carefully and how they apply to you before advising on the Court's likely award of compensation.
When looking at the extent of treatment the Court asks itself the question "would an event (radiotherapy / chemotherapy / amputation / need for care / loss of earnings etc) have been more than 50% likely to occur with proper treatment?”
If the answer is yes then the Court will assume it would have happened. If no the Court will assume it would not have happened and so award compensation.
