The overview and contents stay open. Choose the detailed topics you want to read.
A poor outcome is not by itself negligence. Two things have to be shown: that the care fell below what the medical community accepted at the time, and that the failure, rather than the underlying condition, caused the harm. Both are established by expert evidence read against the complete medical file. The complaints route cannot decide negligence or award compensation, and a complaint should not be assumed to hold the limitation period still.
A poor outcome is not by itself negligence
That sentence is the whole difficulty of this subject, and it is worth stating before anything else. Treatment can be carried out competently and still end badly. Complications occur that nobody caused. A claim is not about whether the result was what you hoped for. It is about whether the care fell below the standard required, and whether that failure, rather than the underlying condition, caused the harm.
That is why these claims take longer to assess than any other kind of personal injury claim, and why nobody can tell you at the first meeting whether there is anything in them.
How to start a first enquiry
A short chronology: when you first attended, who you saw, what was said, what was done, and when things went wrong. The names of the hospital or clinic and of the practitioners, so we can run a conflict check, and whether you have made any complaint, and to whom. Please do not send records, discharge letters, imaging reports, prescriptions or consent forms until we confirm we can act, then they can come through the right channel.
What has to be shown
Two questions, and the second is harder
Whether the care fell below the standard required
This is judged against what was known and accepted at the time, in the relevant field of practice, and not with the benefit of what is known now. It is not established by showing that another practitioner would have done something different. It is established by expert evidence from someone practising in the same field.
Case law on the required standard of care
The Cyprus courts have put the frame precisely. In Αγγελή ν. Βορκά (2007) 1(Β) Α.Α.Δ. 761 the Supreme Court set out the three things a patient must prove: a doctor and patient relationship carrying a legal duty of care, a negligent act or omission shown by evidence that the doctor's actions fell below what the courts regard as satisfactory, and damage caused by it. The same judgment says a doctor is not expected always to succeed, that the duty is the exercise of reasonable care and attention, and that what is only a misadventure must not be condemned as negligence: a complication following surgery does not of itself imply negligence. In Γιάλλουρος ν. Ψύλλου (2009) 1(Β) Α.Α.Δ. 1552 a finding of liability was set aside because the accepted medical evidence showed the doctor did what was medically accepted by the scientific community in such or similar circumstances, which is the measure the standard question is decided by. The Supreme Court applied both again in Παναγιώτου, Civil Appeal 298/2016, 4 July 2025, so the frame is current as well as settled.
Whether that failure caused the harm
This is where most of these claims are decided. A patient who was already unwell, and who would in any event have suffered some part of what followed, has to show what difference the failure actually made. Separating the consequences of the condition from the consequences of the treatment is expert work, and it is the reason a claim cannot be assessed from the account alone.
A case illustrating proof of causation
When that work is done properly, courts follow the chain wherever the medicine leads. In Μιχαήλ ν. Λαπίθη, Civil Appeal 336/2011, decided on 12 January 2018, contrast fluid used in a spinal investigation passed through a torn dural membrane, met the cerebrospinal fluid and caused chemical meningitis and, in turn, the brain damage from which the patient later died; the Supreme Court accepted the expert's account of that sequence, entered judgment against the first defendant, and awarded €200,000 in general damages, €100,000 in special damages and €150,000 for future losses. The case is a demonstration of both halves of this page: causation was proved step by physiological step, and it was proved by expert evidence, not by the story.
What you were told beforehand
A separate question sometimes arises about what a patient was told before agreeing to a procedure, and whether the information given was adequate. Consent forms, and the notes of the discussion that preceded them, are among the first documents we look for.
That question has a statutory measure. Under section 11 of the Patients' Rights Law 1(I)/2005, informed consent is a precondition of care: consent given after complete medical information, provided at a suitable time and place and in a manner the patient can understand. Section 12 lists what that information includes: the diagnosis and, where feasible, the prognosis; the purpose, expected benefit and probability of success of the proposed treatment; its risks, including side effects, pain and discomfort; and the prospects and risks of the alternatives, including no treatment. What was actually said is measured against that list, which is why the record of the discussion matters as much as the signature on the form.
Whether the treatment was given in a public or a private setting affects who the claim is against and how it proceeds, and it should be established at the outset rather than assumed.
If treatment has gone wrong, tell us the dates, the name of the hospital or clinic and briefly what happened at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or the enquiry form. We reply within one business day.
Complaints
The complaints route, and the one thing it cannot give you
You can complain without suing, and since 2025 there is a national officer to complain to. None of that route can award you a cent, which is why it does not replace a claim.
The Patient's Advocate: appointment and role
Law 54(I)/2025 rebuilt the Patients' Rights Law and created the Patient's Advocate. Under section 21A(1) the Council of Ministers appoints the Advocate on the Minister's proposal, chosen from a list of up to five names drawn up after consultation with the Federation of Patients' Associations of Cyprus. Under section 21B(f) the Advocate receives, examines and handles complaints of an urgent nature, and refers the rest to the district Complaints Examination Committee.
Below the Advocate the route has two rungs, and both now carry a clock. Section 22(1) requires every health service provider to appoint a Patients' Rights Officer, with a proviso exempting a provider employing three people or fewer. Under section 22(5)(b) the officer handles complaints that can be dealt with without referral, and the proviso gives him two working days. Under section 22(5)(c), where a complaint needs immediate handling and that period cannot apply, he refers it straight to the Committee. Under section 22(11)(a) a patient not satisfied with the officer's decision may go to the Committee at second instance, and under section 22(11)(b) a patient of a provider with three employees or fewer, or one who would simply rather not complain to the officer, may go to the Committee at first instance. Under section 23(5) the Committee decides within a reasonable period and no later than one month from the referral.
Then the limit, and the Law states it twice in the same words. Under section 23(1)(b) the Committee has no competence to examine questions of medical expert evidence or medical negligence, or a request for the payment of compensation, and none to take disciplinary measures where the Disciplinary Council of the Cyprus Medical Association or another competent authority has that power. Section 22(10), added by the same Law, applies the identical exclusion to the Patients' Rights Officer.
The route is still worth using, and worth understanding. It can get a practice changed, a record corrected, an explanation given and a failure written down, and section 24A now requires a provider to take all appropriate measures to comply with the Law and to make every effort to comply with the Advocate's recommendations, putting any disagreement in a reasoned written statement to him. What it cannot do is decide whether there was negligence, or order anyone to pay you. That is a claim, and it runs on its own limitation period whatever the complaint is doing.
Evidence
The records, complete and unedited
The medical records are not part of the evidence in these claims. They are very nearly all of it.
Ask for the complete file rather than a summary, and ask in writing so that there is a record of when you asked. A discharge letter is not the file. What is usually needed is everything, including the parts that look administrative.
Asking is the exercise of a right, not a favour, and it has two bases. Medical records are personal data, and the patient has a right of access to the data concerning them under article 15 of the General Data Protection Regulation, given effect in Cyprus by the Protection of Natural Persons with regard to the Processing of Personal Data Law 125(I)/2018. A written request has to be answered within one month, extendable by two further months where the request is complex, and the controller should not destroy the material the request concerns while it is being dealt with. Under section 18 of the Patients' Rights Law 1(I)/2005 the patient has a right of access to the medical file, directly or through a legal representative, including the right to a copy or an extract of it, and under section 17 the provider is required to keep records in which the course of the treatment appears fully documented. Access can be refused or limited only on stated grounds, so a refusal has to say which ground it stands on.
- Clinical notes for every attendance, in full, including handwritten entries
- Nursing notes and observation charts, which frequently record the timing of a deterioration more precisely than anything else in the file
- Imaging and the reports on it, and laboratory results
- Operation notes, anaesthetic records and drug charts
- Consent forms and any information sheet you were given
- Referral letters and correspondence between practitioners
- Records from every other institution involved, including any subsequent treatment elsewhere, because the later records often describe the earlier failure
Write your own account now, while it is fresh, with dates and names and what was said to you. Recollection of conversations is the part of this evidence that degrades fastest, and unlike the records it exists nowhere else.
Keep any complaint correspondence. A response to a complaint is a document written by the other side about the same events, and it is worth having whether or not it is satisfactory.
What the claim covers, and the time you have
A claim covers the harm attributable to the failure and its documented consequences, including further treatment made necessary by it. The heads of loss usually examined are set out in the firm's guide, Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus. The value of a claim of this kind depends on what the expert evidence shows the failure actually caused, which is why it cannot be indicated at the outset.
A claim for damages for personal injury must generally be brought within three years under the Limitation of Actions Law 66(I)/2012. The rule that matters most in this area is in section 6(2): the three years run from the day the cause of action was complete, or from the day the injured person came to know of the injury where that was later. Harm from treatment is often the case where the injury and the knowledge of it are separated by months or years, so the date the period starts is frequently not the date of the operation. Whether that helps in a particular case is a question to put early. Making a complaint, and waiting for the answer, should not be assumed to hold time still. Section 27Α of the same Law suspends the limitation period for negligence and breach of statutory duty for thirty nine months from the day the 2021 amending law came into force, so the three years is not by itself the answer to whether a claim is in time.
Even where the three years have run, the claim is not necessarily over. Section 6(3) gives the court a discretion, in a claim for bodily injury or death, to decide that the limitation provisions do not apply, weighing the reasons for and length of the delay, how long the injured person was unable to deal with the case, the effort made to obtain the necessary material, the defendant's response to that effort, and what the delay has done to the securing and the reliability of the evidence. It is a discretion and not an entitlement, and it cannot be exercised more than two years after the period expired.
Questions we are asked
Will you tell me straight away whether I have a claim?
No, and anybody who does is guessing. What we can do early is tell you what has to be established, obtain the complete records, and say whether there is enough in them to take further. The records, not the account of what happened, are what answer the question.
I have already complained to the hospital.
Send us everything: what you wrote, what they replied, and when. A complaint and a claim are different processes with different purposes, and the outcome of one does not determine the other. Do not assume that a complaint pauses the limitation period.
I do not want to sue the doctor. I want to know what happened.
That is a common and entirely legitimate starting point, and obtaining the complete records is the step that serves it. Understanding what the file shows comes first in any event. Whether anything follows from it is a decision you take afterwards, with the file in front of you.
The treatment was several years ago.
Tell us the dates, including when you first realised something had gone wrong, because that second date is sometimes relevant. Do not conclude on your own that it is too late, and equally do not assume that it is not. It is the first question we would look at.
The hospital is refusing to give me my records.
Put the request in writing and keep the reply. Section 18 of the Patients' Rights Law 1(I)/2005 gives the patient a right of access to the file, including a copy or an extract, directly or through a legal representative, and it can be refused or limited only on the grounds the section states. A refusal that names no ground, or a summary offered in place of the file, is not compliance with it, and pressing the request properly is often the first step we take.
Is there an official body I can complain to?
Yes. Under the Patients' Rights Law 1(I)/2005 every health services provider, other than the smallest, names a Patients' Rights Officer, and a Complaints Examination Committee sits in each district. What those routes cannot do is decide a negligence claim: section 23 expressly withholds from the Committee any competence over questions of medical negligence or claims for compensation. A complaint may produce a useful written account of events, and it does not move the claim forward by itself or pause the limitation period.
I signed a consent form. Does that mean I accepted the risk?
The consent form is one document, read together with the notes of the discussion that preceded it, and it does not by itself answer whether the information given was adequate. The measure of adequacy is in sections 11 and 12 of Law 1(I)/2005: informed consent following complete medical information, covering the diagnosis, the proposed treatment, the alternatives and the risks. What was said before the form was signed therefore matters as much as the signature on it.
How long do I have to bring a medical negligence claim?
Three years, under the Limitation of Actions Law 66(I)/2012. When the period began to run is asked early and answered on the facts, so tell us both the date of the treatment and the date you realised something had gone wrong. Under section 6(2) the period runs from the day the cause of action was complete, or from the day the injured person knew of the injury if that was later, and section 6(3) gives the court a discretion not to apply the limitation provisions to a personal injury claim, not exercisable more than two years after the limitation date. Section 27Α of the same Law suspends the limitation period for negligence and breach of statutory duty for thirty nine months from the day the 2021 amending law came into force, so the three years is not by itself the answer to whether a claim is in time.
Written on this subject
This page sits within Litigation & Arbitration. Back to personal injury. Στα ελληνικά.