Free legal advice for injured people through Legal Surgery

We specialise in personal injury claims of the utmost severity, particularly those involving brain or spinal injury and so our clients and their families are extremely vulnerable. We have built our reputation over many years on excellence in client care and compassion for victims of serious injury.

Legal Surgery

Since May 2012 Salford Royal Hospital has offered a free legal advice service to all patients who have suffered head and spinal cord injuries and more recently to those with severe orthopaedic injuries. The advice is given by senior solicitors employed by PotterReesDolan who specialise in helping seriously injured patients and their families.

The service was created to fill the gap left by the reduced state funding for Law Centres and Citizen Advice Bureau. The Trust recognised the need for seriously injured patients and their families to receive specialist advice on such matters as welfare benefit entitlements work problems and indebtedness at a most crucial time.

Very importantly the advice is available free to all patients whether or not there is any claim for compensation. Since it began, literally hundreds of patients and their families have been given free legal support at a time of crisis and when they most need it. The large majority of patients do not have any claim for compensation but need advice about welfare benefits, dealing with debts, difficult employers, the banks and so on.

Information leaflets about the Legal Surgery are freely available on those wards which treat such patients. If a patient or family member wishes to use the free legal service, the ward informs us (by telephone) and an appointment is arranged. Very importantly, the strict procedures and protocols in place with the Trust ensure our solicitors only see those patients/family members who want to be seen.

Specific procedures are also in place for patients who may be vulnerable. Those who may be unable to understand advice (for example because of the continuing effects of a head injury) or who are minors, cannot be seen (even if they request) without the presence of a responsible adult.

If a patient may have a claim for compensation, PotterReesDolan gives the patient the Trust’s approved list of solicitors as soon as is practicable, giving them the choice of suitably specialised solicitors to instruct if they wish to pursue a claim for compensation. There have been many occasions where PotterReesDolan has given free advice to patients and their families who may have had a compensation claim but have not pursued this with our firm.

Examples of typical cases dealt with by the Legal Surgery at Salford

As already described, we provide free legal advice to patients at Salford Royal. Since May 2012, we have given advice to hundreds of patients and their families and the large majority of these have no prospect of a claim for compensation.

We believe we are offering a real benefit, unavailable elsewhere, to those going through such a traumatic experience. All of the following are actual cases dealt with by the Legal Surgery where we have been able to provide practical help, assistance, guidance and advice that has made a real difference to patients’ lives that they otherwise might not have had access to:

• Helped the wife of a head injured (and unconscious) patient pay her bills out of her husband’s bank account.
• Found that the partner of a head injured person was entitled to receive £50,000 under his home contents insurance policy.
• Helped a wife whose husband was unconscious and whose employer was threatening to stop his wages. We wrote to his employers and insisted that they continue to pay him.
• Advised head injured patients about receiving financial grants from the Headway Hardship Fund.
• Advised about Welfare Benefits including Disability Living Allowance of up to £130 per week, Employment Support Allowance of up to £105 per week and Carers Allowance of up to £58 per week.
• Helped the mother of a young man whose college wanted to know why he hadn’t attended his lectures for a week and whose grant was under threat.
• Supported a lady who had terminal spinal cancer and latterly her family after she sadly passed away over a six month period in securing a lump sum payment under an insurance policy, despite the fact that the insurance policy had been cancelled by her, ensuring some financial security for her adult children

At no time has PotterReesDolan ever received payment for any of this work. We do this work because we know patients in hospital often need solicitors’ help and advice and sometimes this won’t wait until they are discharged. We know that often this means we can remove one area of real anxiety at a very difficult time.

Find out more about the Legal Surgery on our dedicated page and use the QR code to make an appointment.

You can hear more about the Legal Surgery and our involvement on Radio 4's You and Yours programme this afternoon.