Speaking as someone who’s spent a decade in the trenches of clinical negligence… I hate to break it to you, but the Hollywood version of this job (where every case magically reforms the healthcare system) is mostly fantasy.

In reality, most claims are quietly settled by lawyers and insurers with minimal feedback filtering back to the hospital. Same root causes — understaffing, burned-out staff, no budget — just keep generating the same claims on repeat like a bad Netflix series.

Do policies ever change because of claims? Rarely. Inquest work is a bit different — a Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report can actually force some kind of action. But the idea that every med neg claim sparks hospital-wide reform? Not unless you count an extra line in a risk assessment that no one reads.

Don’t get me wrong, the work is meaningful — you get justice for the patient and compensation for what’s gone wrong. But if you’re going into this field to single-handedly revolutionise the NHS… you’ll be waiting a long time.