Compensation

If you are successful in your claim and you are awarded damages the compensation will be made up of 2 components: general damages and special damages.

General damages

This is the portion of your compensation which is awarded for your pain; suffering and what lawyers call "loss of amenity" or loss of enjoyment of life. This takes account of the physical and mental effects your injury has had on you and also the limitations it has placed on your everyday life. General damages deal with the non-financial consequences of your injury

The level of award received in each claim is based on other similar cases previously decided at court and guidelines published to help solicitors judge the range of awards for your type of injury.

Compensation Culture

Despite what the media would have us think, we do not have a compensation culture in England and Wales. If anything, fewer claims are currently being made at court than in the past.

It is important to remember that only if treatment is found to be incompetently performed that a claim will succeed. No compensation will be awarded if the health professionals are shown to have performed their job correctly and to have done everything that an ordinary professional of their experience would have done.