How ambulance chasing lawyers bleed NHS for £418m a year
Negligence fees soar by 43% and could pay for 19,000 nurses
GRASPING law firms charged a record £418 million after pursuing cases of medical blunders against the NHS last year.
The astonishing bill from ‘ambulance chasing’ solicitors has leapt £126 million in just one year – representing a 43 per cent rise on the previous year.
And some greedy lawyers have been accused of pulling in ‘grossly inflated’ fees, many times what their clients have received in compensation, a Mail on Sunday investigation has found.
The £418 million bill would pay for 19,000 new nurses for the NHS – or 25,000 kidney transplants. The rise comes despite a Government pledge to crack down on the ‘excessive costs’ charged by some solicitors.
In June last year, the then Health Minister Ben Gummer promised to cap the amounts law firms charged the NHS in cases where damages were under £100,000.
But new figures from the NHS Litigation Authority [NHSLA], which fights medical negligence cases on behalf of hospitals and other providers of care, show the problem is getting worse – with some legal companies brazenly submitting huge fees for relatively minor matters.
While the legal costs of claimants have soared to £418 million, the costs of defending the cases by the NHS has risen by only £17 million to £120 million.
Cases identified by The Mail on Sunday include:
A firm that tried to sting the NHS with a £25,000 bill for a pressure ulcer case that led to damages of just £1,000 – but ended up having its fee slashed by more than 80 per cent;
A second firm attempted to overcharge in a skin cancer case to the tune of £50,000 – submitting ‘disproportionate’ costs of almost £113,000;
A third case in which lawyers submitted a bill almost 50 times the £1,500 damages awarded to their patient, who had suffered a delayed diagnosis of a viral infection.
All three firms in the cases above – which have not been identified – had their fees cut by judges, according to information from the NHSLA. Partners at top medical negligence firms typically earn six-figure salaries, while top earners can be paid more than £1 million a year.
Last night a leading MP criticised law firms for seeking legal fees that were ‘grossly inflated and morally questionable’. And he warned that ballooning litigation costs risked making the NHS ‘unsustainable’.
But solicitors hit back, claiming the NHSLA frequently ramped up the costs of cases – wasting large amounts of taxpayers’ money – by ‘dragging its heels in admitting liability’. They said a considerable proportion of the costs they received went towards legitimate expenses, such as the costs of court fees, barristers and expert witnesses.
But the cases uncovered by the MoS paint a picture of exorbitant fees that dwarf actual damages received by patients.
In the pressure ulcer case involving a woman in labour, a law firm successfully sued a hospital which admitted its failures.
She was awarded £1,000 at Oldham County Court but the woman’s law firm then submitted a legal bill for £24,785, which NHSLA lawyers complained was ‘grossly disproportionate to the damages recovered and the matters in issue’. The court agreed, and slashed the fee to £4,546.
In the second case, lawyers for a skin cancer patient, who should have been diagnosed earlier, claimed £112,828 after obtaining £21,500 for their client. Their fee was cut by just over £50,000 to £62,500.
In the third case, solicitors for a woman who suffered after doctors failed to diagnose a viral infection put in a bill for £73,368 after she was awarded just £1,500. Their fee was halved to £37,500.
Tory MP Dr James Davies, a member of the Commons Health Select Committee, said: ‘Patients should have legal avenues open to them for true medical negligence, but some fees are grossly inflated.’
Paul Rumley of Royds Withy King, which received £3.5 million in costs last year, said: ‘There are many occasions when the NHSLA has dragged its heels in admitting liability, causing costs to escalate.’ Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers chairman Stephen Webber said the NHSLA made patients who experienced real harm suffer through its ‘culture of defend, deny and delay’.
He added: ‘In cases where the claimant is forced to issue court proceedings, the NHSLA loses 76 per cent of cases, which is complete madness.’
‘Grossly inflated and morally questionable’