Victory for MoS as huge NHS legal fees capped
LAWYERS who ‘cream’ millions of pounds off the NHS are to have their legal fees capped – in a victory for The Mail on Sunday.
The Health Secretary is to bring in stringent controls so law firms can no longer claim exorbitant fees for clinical-negligence cases that result in only modest compensation.
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement, made exclusively to this paper, comes after we revealed the staggering fees the NHS has to pay former patients’ lawyers. It gave £418million to legal teams last year – up 43 per cent on 2015.
In one case, a firm tried to bill more than £73,000 after their client was awarded £1,500 over a missed viral infection.
In another, lawyers claimed £83,000 for a case where the patient received a mere £1,000. But under the Government’s proposed scheme, solicitors’ bills will be capped in cases when the client’s compensation is less than £25,000 – around 60 per cent of cases.
The Department of Health estimates the move will save the English NHS £45million a year. Though this is a fraction of the £1.5billion annual bill for compensation and legal fees, it is enough to pay for 2,000 nurses.
Mr Hunt said it was important patients had ‘open dialogue’ with hos- pitals when ‘significant mistakes’ happened, and legal action could be ‘part of this process’. But he said: ‘What we often see in lower cost claims is a deeply unfair system where unscrupulous law firms cream off excessive legal costs that dwarf the actual damages recovered. We believe this creates an adversarial culture of litigation, which is inflating insurance premiums and drawing away resource from the NHS.’
A 12-week public consultation begins tomorrow and, a Government source said, Mr Hunt wants the cap to come into force by autumn.
Lawyers have delayed the so-called ‘fixed costs’ by more than a year – the consultation had been due to begin in 2015. They also appear to have watered down the project, with the cap limit originally set at £100,000.
Philippa Luscombe, of solicitors Penningtons Manches, said fixed costs risked denying justice to parents who had lost babies and those whose elderly relatives died due to appalling care, as such claims tended to result in low compensation.
But Emma Hallinan, of the Medical Protection Society, which indemnifies doctors, said she was ‘pleased the Government is tackling this important issue’.