Legal Support
Medical negligence
After a brain haemorrhage
A brain haemorrhage, often called a brain bleed or a haemorrhagic stroke, can be survived when it is recognised and treated quickly enough. When the warning signs get dismissed, when a scan is not done, or when a bleed is found and nothing happens for hours, the brain injury left behind is often far worse than it needed to be.
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If you have been carrying the feeling that this could have gone differently, you are allowed to ask why. A solicitor who works in brain injury can usually tell you fairly quickly whether there is anything in it.
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For survivors, families and anyone who has lost someone.
Brain haemorrhage
Bleeding in or around the brain. Most people say brain bleed, and both mean the same thing.
Haemorrhagic stroke
A stroke caused by a bleed rather than by a clot. It is the less common type of stroke and tends to be the more serious one.
Subarachnoid haemorrhage
Bleeding into the space around the brain, usually from an aneurysm that has burst. The sudden thunderclap headache people describe is most often this.
Acquired brain injury
The lasting damage left afterwards, caused by the bleed itself and by the pressure and lack of oxygen that follow it. This is what a claim usually ends up valuing.
The words you will hear
Different people use different terms for the same thing, which does not help when you are trying to piece together what happened.
What a claim usually involves
Every case is different, but this is the shape of it so you know what you would be agreeing to.
01
A first conversation
Free, around half an hour, no obligation. You describe what happened and a specialist tells you honestly whether it is worth looking into further. Plenty of these conversations end with a solicitor saying there is no case, and that is a useful answer too.
02
Getting the medical records
Your solicitor requests the full set from every hospital, ambulance service and GP practice involved. This is usually where the timeline becomes clear, including how long things actually took rather than how long they felt.​
03
An independent expert opinion
A neurosurgeon, neuroradiologist or emergency medicine consultant with no connection to the treating team reviews the records. They answer two questions: was the care below an acceptable standard, and would better care have changed the outcome.​
04
Putting the case to them
If the experts support it, the claim is set out formally to the trust or the practice. They have a set period to respond and either admit it or deny it.​
05
Settlement, or occasionally court
The large majority settle by negotiation. Very few reach a courtroom, and your solicitor will tell you well in advance if yours looks likely to.
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A sudden, severe headache was put down to migraine, a virus, dehydration or stress
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There were warning signs in the days or weeks beforehand and nobody joined them up
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No CT scan was done, or there was a long wait before one happened
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A scan was done but the bleed, or the aneurysm behind it, was not picked up
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High blood pressure was recorded more than once and never treated or followed up
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There was a delay getting to a neurosurgical unit after the bleed was found
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Something went wrong during surgery, or during the monitoring in the hours after it
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You asked the hospital to explain what happened and the answer did not add up
This might be for you if
Any one of these on its own is reason enough to have a conversation.