Cap on legal fees that lawyers can claim in medical negligence cases
A CAP is to be introduced on the amount of legal fees lawyers can recover in clinical negligence cases to curb spiralling costs.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the proposed cap would apply to all cases up to £25,000 and would help to save the NHS up to £45m a year.
The NHS clinical negligence bill topped £1.6bn in 2016-17, four times the £400m it was a decade ago.
The move, which follows a consultation last year, is part of a wider Government strategy to drive down rising clinical negligence costs.
It comes in the same month that lawyers who target the NHS have been officially banned from having offices or advertising space in NHS hospitals. Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt, inset, said: “When things go wrong, we need a system that is just for those who have suffered but also just to other patients, both in terms of making sure we learn from mistakes and also pay legal costs in a proportionate and reasonable way. “However, sometimes we end up paying legal fees that are much, much higher than the actual damages incurred, which may be good for lawyers but is a terrible use of money that could be spent on patient care. “This should not obscure the simple truth that the biggest way to cut negligence costs is to reduce patient harm in the first place, which is why we will continue a relentless focus to make our NHS the safest healthcare system in the world.”
A spokeswoman for Mr Hunt’s department said there was currently no cap on costs and the money claimed by lawyers “takes vital funds away from front-line patient care at a time when the NHS is under pressure”.
They added that there are numerous examples of lawyers charging more than 80 times the amount awarded to the victims in minor claims.
In one case, lawyers claimed £83,000 in legal costs for a case in which the patient was awarded £1,000.
Last month it emerged that the cost of all negligence claims was £6.2bn between 2012 and 2017.
A group of experts from across the Government, NHS and legal profession will come together to work on introducing the cap, and will report in the autumn.