The medical term Orthopaedics refers to your bones, muscles and joints and the doctors who work in this field will often handle patients who have suffered bone fractures or need joint replacement or ligament surgery.

Every year in the UK thousands of people are treated successfully for Orthopaedic health problems; however some of the people treated do suffer mistakes at the hands of the people who are there to help them. These mistakes are common and this type of medical negligence is now two or three times more likely to happen than any other medical negligence claim.

The orthopaedics branch of medicine involves the preservation and restoration of the musculoskeletal system and the surgeons involved in this aspect of medicine have the job of diagnosing your condition and treating it using the appropriate method, which could be medicine, exercise or surgery. Finally a surgeon in the orthopaedics branch of medicine will perform rehabilitation on a patient by recommending exercise or physical therapy to restore movement. An orthopaedic surgeon will also inform you of how to prevent further injury by providing information and treatment plans.

Orthopaedic treatment can cover a huge range of personal injuries such as diagnosing a broken arm to performing a hip replacement operation. The main areas in which an orthopaedic surgeon will specialise include: the hand, shoulder and elbow surgery, joint reconstruction, paediatric orthopaedics, foot and ankle surgery, spine surgery, musculoskeletal oncology, surgical sports medicine, and orthopaedic trauma.

Within medicine accidents and mistakes do happen and in most cases they are harmless. Medical professionals are merely just human and human error is often unavoidable but in cases where an error should have been avoided and there is no valid reason why it wasn't, someone should be held accountable. These errors can occur during the diagnosis, treatment or prognosis of an illness as well as being a combination of all three of these.

If you feel that you have been mistreated and it has lead to you suffering as a result then you could be entitled to make a claim for compensation. Some of the most common reasons for an orthopaedic medical negligence claim are as follows:

- Inaccurate or late diagnosis - Failure to take tests or misinterpretation of test results - Poor treatment of fractures - Poor operative technique - Damage to nerves or circulation during medical procedures - Inadequate cleaning and dressing of wounds or infection

If you have suffered due to Orthopaedic medical negligence in the last three years then you could be entitled to make a claim for compensation. In order to be successful in a medical negligence claim you need to be able to prove that the injury you are or were suffering from was caused due to a lapse in the medical care that you received. To prove this you would need to obtain statements from any relevant family members or friends. Your medical records would need to be obtained and this normally comes with a fee, which brings me to my next point, any fees and cost encountered along the way will get paid back on top of damages in a successful compensation claim.

If you are hoping to make a claim for compensation then contact a legal team today, who will be able to examine your case and explain where you stand legally. Helen is the web master of Accident Consult, specialists in helping you claim the compensation that you deserve after a Medical Negligence mistake that was caused through no fault of your own.