No vultures

Your f front-page story ‘Vulture lawyersla bleed NHS’ (October 9) was as inaccurate as it was grossly misleading. I represent legal specialists working for victims of clinical negligence, such as Jamie and Sally Sparrow. They have been fighting a seemingly impenetrable wall of frustration, not for compensation, but just to find out why their baby died in hospital after his delivery went wrong.

Jamie says without the specialism of my colleagues he would not have made even the limited progress which has forced one hospital to conduct a second investigation and to promise to improve its methods so that tragedies like this may be avoided in the future. We are campaigning to speed up the system and stop the culture of ‘defend, deny, delay’ from the NHS which increases costs, adds to distress and ends up with them losing or settling almost 76 per cent of cases in which court proceedings are issued.

Your headline that claimant fees have risen by 43 per cent is inaccurate because it reports an accounting measure which includes future sums. The Government may propose Fixed Recoverable Costs on lawyers. That would be a mistake. It would not change the ‘deny’ culture and could bar people like Jamie Sparrow. It would not improve patient safety, would limit access to justice and remove an incentive for the NHS to settle faster. Stephen Webber, The Society

of Clinical Injury Lawyers