Ashtons Legal

Clinical Negligence

Partner and Head of Medical Negligence

Sharon is Head of Medical Negligence and has extensive experience in all claims arising from medical injury events but specialises in birth injury, brain injury and spinal injury claims.

Sharon joined the firm in July 2000, qualified as a member of ILEX in June 2004 and became a Fellow of the Institute (FILEX) in 2006. She became an Associate with the firm in 2012, a Partner in 2016, and the elected member representative on the Ashtons Legal Management Board in 2023.

She has achieved the highly acclaimed Fellowship status with the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and has been awarded membership on the esteemed specialist panel for AvMA (Action Against Medical Accidents) demonstrating a distinguished level of competency in dealing with complex clinical negligence cases, firstly achieve accreditation and more recently re-accreditation, for a further five years.

Sharon became the first female Chair of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers (SCIL) Executive Committee in May 2023, and her role involves liaison and collaboration with key stakeholders in clinical injury/patient safety litigation, involvement in political discussion as to policy and impact on injured patients, and development of efficiencies on behalf of member firms to streamline processes to benefit the injured party and help to reduce cost.

Sharon spent a significant part of her early career building expertise in inquest representation, which is now a large part of her team’s medical injury practice. She developed particular expertise in mental health fatal cases and became a regular contributor to both regional and national media on issues of mental health and patient safety. She still spends time with regional and national stakeholders to collaboratively work together on streamlining the litigation process and putting grieving families at the heart of the process.

Sharon’s current caseload consists of a mix of complex catastrophic birth/brain injury claims as well as complex fatal claims with highlights such as:

quantification of a birth injury claim where delays in antenatal treatment have led to life-changing injuries for a young man. Working with multiple disciplines to implement therapies and treatments to improve quality of life and health; obtaining a six-figure settlement for the widow and son of a man who took his own life. Despite a long mental health history and repeated requests for help from the man and his family, treatment was not offered or provided with catastrophic consequences; settlement of £785,000 for widow and child dependents in a failure to monitor post operative deterioration after neurosurgery which led to his sad death; settlement of £417,500 for a failure to diagnose a spinal tumour until the Claimant had deteriorated and suffered paraplegia; settlement of £115,000 in relation to unnecessary and unconsented spinal surgery; settlement of £270,000 in relation to negligent consenting of voluntary blood donation following which, the Claimant suffered a nerve injury and sensory loss.

Client comments from cases Sharon has recently settled include:

“Sharon Allison was exceptional and I really couldn’t have asked for a better lady to represent me and handle my case.”

"I'd like to thank you and your colleagues for getting me through all of this to a conclusion that will make a huge difference for me going forward, and also one that enables me to draw a line in terms of what happened and move on from it. I'm still getting my head around the fact that it's over and am incredibly grateful, it feels like a massive weight has been lifted."

"Sharon was the one dealing with my case and she is very professional, keeps you updated with everything that is going on, and even goes above and beyond for you. I will be forever grateful to Sharon and what she achieved for me, I felt I was left in good hands with her. Thank you so much Sharon".

English

Sharon qualified as a member of ILEX in June 2004 and has been accredited as a Fellow by The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). Sharon serves on the Law Society Clinical Negligence Panel for practitioners who have extensive experience in the medical injury field.  In addition to this, Sharon has also been awarded membership on the AvMA (Action against Medical Accident) panel - which involved following a rigorous application process.

FILEX