Dental Negligence Blackburn

Dental negligence can be hard to describe, as there are so many different things that come under its umbrella. Most people tend to think about physical health issues, but there’s a wide range of other aspects that can be included within a clinical negligence claim. You might not even realise that you’ve undergone negligent treatment, although you may feel that something isn’t right.

You may be able to make a successful claim for negligence if you’ve suffered from the following things:

• Avoidable injury – If you’ve suffered from unnecessary harm during a dental treatment and this has caused a physical injury, you may be able to make a personal injury claim. You may find that you have unnecessary pain, or something else may have occurred, such as nerve damage or wrong tooth extraction.
• Financial losses – It’s quite common for claimants to suffer from loss of earnings – particularly if they’ve had to take time off work to recover from a negligent dental procedure. You may also find that you’ve had to pay additional costs (e.g. if you need to travel to another dental practice for a restorative procedure), or that you’ve had to pay for cosmetic dentistry to fix the issue caused by your negligent dentist.
• Psychological trauma – As well as physical dental injuries, you might also find yourself suffering from psychological trauma as a result of dental negligence. Commons symptoms are depression, anxiety and low confidence/self-esteem, which may be particularly traumatic if you already have a fear of the dentist.

• Failure to obtain patient consent – Many people aren’t aware of this, but every time a dental professional carries out a dental procedure, they have to obtain voluntary consent from you. As part of their legal duty of care, your dentist has to ensure you’re competent enough to consent. They also have to make you aware of any risks or side-effects that could occur, as well as alternative treatment options.
• Failure to diagnose – Misdiagnosing a dental condition can be very harmful, particularly if it leads to the wrong treatment being carried out. You can also raise a claim against your dentist if they fail to diagnose a dental condition – particularly if it’s something serious like gum disease or oral cancer.
• Failure to treat – Your dentist may diagnose your dental issue correctly, but if they fail to treat it appropriately, you could be entitled to make a claim. In some cases, they may carry out inappropriate treatment for your condition, which could mean you need to have additional work carried out when the correct procedure is conducted.

There are a wide range of things you can make a claim for in Blackburn, with most of our cases involving more than one type of negligence. If you’re not sure whether the malpractice you’ve suffered from is something we can help you with, please get in touch with our expert team to find out more.

Otherwise, you can learn more about the dental negligence Blackburn claims process here.