Victims of NHS errors ‘at risk of losing out on justice’

VICTIMS of NHS blunders will see “justice denied” under government plans to cap payments for negligence claims, patients’ groups have warned.

Safety campaigners say the proposals will mean the NHS fails to properly investigate failings that put lives at risk.

The Government has proposed capping legal costs in claims where damages are worth less than £25,000, which make up the bulk of negligence cases.

Health officials say the system leaves too much money in the hands of lawyers. However, the heads of the Patients Association and Action against Medical Accidents are among nine charities who have written to Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, urging him to reconsider the plans, on which consultation has just closed.

It comes as the NHS faces record negligence claims, with a near-tripling in the potential bill for brain injury and other catastrophic birth events.

Baby deaths will be excluded from the plans. But maternal deaths, and most types of injury and harm, will be included. Last year a more than 12,000 claims were lodged in England.

The letter, whose signatories include Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents, and Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association, calls for a rethinking of the plans. “The majority of respondents to the consultation agreed with our belief that the proposals were premature, poorly informed, and posed a threat both to access to justice and patient safety,” they say.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have consulted on proposals to ensure legal costs for lower value clinical negligence cases are proportionate and [fair].”