Dental Negligence Claims

Making a dental negligence claim

Whether your dental care was undertaken by an NHS dentist or a private dentist, your dentist is duty-bound to provide you with timely, effective professional dental care and advice. Where your dentist has failed to provide you or a family member with a professional level of dental care you may be entitled to make a claim for dental negligence.

Blackwater Law solicitors have experience dealing with a range of negligence claims involving dental care and represent clients across the UK in successfully claiming compensation in dental and medical negligence claims.

What is considered dental negligence?

After having gone through a procedure, you may be asking what exactly is classed as dental negligence. Below are just some of the more common examples of dental negligence:

• Where your dentist makes a misdiagnosis and mistakes the condition you are suffering from for another, potentially less serious one, or misses a condition entirely. This would mean you do not get the treatment you need, or it is delayed, potentially providing grounds for a misdiagnosis claim. Mouth cancer, infection or serious gum disease may be examples of conditions which are misdiagnosed by your dentist.
• Where during administering treatment your dentist provides the incorrect medication.
• In instances where work is performed at the wrong site or on the wrong tooth, or to an unsatisfactory standard in some other way, this may provide grounds for a dental and surgical error claim.
• Unnecessary extraction of teeth.
• Where you were undergoing a cosmetic dental procedure and this was performed to a low standard, leaving you with pain, discomfort or worse.
• In instances where inadequate/inappropriate measures were taken before, during and/or after any dental work to prevent infection.
• Where your dentist fails to provide appropriate and/or suitable advice or answer questions that could help you safeguard your oral health.

The impact of dental negligence

The impact of the failures in care provided by your dentist can clearly vary according to the state of your oral health beforehand, any pre-existing conditions you may have and precisely how your dentist has inflicted harm. Where the situation is not recognised or accepted quickly, the potential for long-term problems is also elevated. Some of the long-term impacts of dental negligence have been known to include:

• Long-lasting nerve injury leads to problems with sensitivity, movement, taste, and speech.
• Cosmetic damage or unsightliness has a negative impact on your self-image, self-esteem, or ability to work within certain fields.
• Difficulties in tackling infection lead to prolonged illness and undesirable oral appearance.
• Exacerbation of pre-existing medical conditions and elevation of the risks associated with developing cancer.

How much compensation could I receive for a Dental Negligence Claim?

As with all medical negligence and personal injury claims, it is impossible to put an exact figure on the amount of compensation you are likely to receive.

If your claim is successful, your compensation will be calculated by considering several factors.

• Damage caused by the negligent procedure
• If you have had time off work, and the resulting loss of income
• If future, corrective dental work will be required
• If the damage caused results in lasting damage, which leaves you with long-lasting injuries. This could affect your ability to work as you did before.

https://blackwaterlaw.co.uk/how-is-medical-negligence-compensation-calculated/

Choosing the right dental negligence solicitors

Blackwater Law has been independently recognised as having one of the leading teams of medical negligence solicitors based in the South East. Such is the national reputation of the team at Blackwater Law for successfully winning cases and achieving maximum compensation amounts for clients, that they are approached for advice by individuals across the country.

Is there a time limit for Dental negligence claims?

In general, you will have three years from the moment you were aware that your treatment was potentially negligent, or from the date of the injury. If the claim is for a child, you have until their 18^th birthday to lodge a claim, before their three-year time limit begins.

Dental negligence claims can take varying lengths of time to settle due to each case being completely unique, clients having different dental procedures and medical histories and different levels of severity of dental injuries sustained.

However, when you call Blackwater Law for free initial advice and to find out whether you are indeed able to make a claim the expert dental negligence solicitor you talk with can provide you with sight into what is involved in compensation claims and how long different stages of the legal process might take.

No Win, No Fee Dental Negligence Claims

At Blackwater Law, we understand the difficulties that can be inflicted on you and your family as a result of substandard dental treatment. We understand that you want to claim the compensation you deserve, but you do not want to risk your own money to achieve this. That is why Blackwater Law operates all medical negligence claims on a no-win, no-fee basis.

A no-win, no-fee dental negligence claim means that if your claim for negligence is not successful, you will not owe us anything towards any legal fees. If your dental claim is successful our legal fee will be a percentage of your compensation amount.