Ambulance-chasing lawyers to face cap on ‘spiralling’ fees
MINISTERS have pledged to crack down on ambulancechasing lawyers in an attempt to save patients from paying out massive legal fees.
Health Secretary Shona Robison has unveiled plans to cap the rates that no-win, no-fee firms can charge in medical negligence cases.
Claims have soared in recent years, with NHS Scotland forced to pay out nearly £200million between 2012 and last year.
Ministers believe that a limit on legal fees will still encourage patients to seek compensation while preventing lawyers from charging huge sums of money.
But there are concerns this could raise ‘practical problems’ for lawyers, with complex cases potentially abandoned if legal teams are unable to fund expert witnesses and vital tests.
The move would see the caps for successful fee agreement cases set at 20 per cent for the first £100,000 of damages, 10 per cent of the next £400,000 and 2.5 per cent of anything above £500,000.
Ministers believe this will prevent lawyers from charging patients exorbitant fees for working on their cases.
The present average charge from solicitors is around 25 per cent, but fees can be higher.
A UK Government document revealed a case in which lawyers had claimed up to £83,000 in legal costs despite a patient being awarded only £1,000 in damages.
The Scottish Government’s proposals are contained in the Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) Bill, which is now before Holyrood.
Miss Robison said ministers had ‘indicated an intention’ to follow the recommendations of Sheriff Principal James Taylor, who set out the cap system in a review in 2013.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The aspiration of the Bill is to increase access to justice by making it clear to potential litigants there are methods of funding claims in which the cost of paying their lawyer is predictable and, in personal injury claims if the case is lost, they will not be liable for the defender’s costs.’
NHS Scotland has paid out £193million in negligence cases in the past five years. Cases are brought against health boards when it is alleged standards of treatment or patient care have fallen below acceptable levels, causing unnecessary injury, illness or death. However, cases can be extremely difficult to prove and often require the expert opinions of a number of clinicians.
Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘While it is only right that patients receive compensation where negligence has occurred, we should be taking steps to limit what their lawyers can recover.
‘The costs of these claims is starting to spiral out of control.’
But Pete Walsh, of patient safety campaign group Action against Medical Accidents, warned: ‘Imposing crude caps on legal fees based on a proportion of the damages could be disastrous.
‘The size of damages is not a reflection of the complexity of a case and the amount of work that has to go into it. This could have serious consequences if defenders can price people out of being able to pursue a claim by adopting a deny and defend approach.
‘Safety will not be improved if people are not able to challenge NHS denials of liability.’
The Law Society of Scotland has warned of possible ‘practical problems’ for solicitors, while the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers has begun a campaign opposing a cap.
‘Crude limits could be disastrous’