NHS LA accounts show disproportionate impact of claimant legal fees - MPS responds to NHS LA Report and accounts 2012/2013

The year on year increase in clinical negligence claims against NHS Trusts continues, with the NHS LA reporting a 10.8 per cent rise in the number of new claims reported in the year ending March 2013, and a 66 per cent increase over the past 4 years.

In addition the NHS LA estimates that a staggering £23 billion will be needed to cover known claims and future claims arising from events which have already happened but have not yet been reported.

In response to the publication of the NHS Litigation Authority Report and accounts 2012/2013, Dr Stephanie Bown, Director of Policy and Communications, at MPS, said, 'We are disturbed to see that the percentage of claimants’ legal costs continues to increase and now reportedly stands at over 44 per cent of the cost of compensation to patients. Whilst we strongly believe that patients should receive fair compensation, we also believe that too often claimant legal costs are disproportionately high. We have experience of claimant lawyers billing three times the level of compensation.

Whereas claimant costs are often higher than those of defendants, it seems desperately unfair that in just five years claimant costs have increased from 2.6 times that of the defendants to more than 4.1 times. As a demonstration of the need for the legal costs reforms this could not be clearer.

We sincerely hope that changes brought in by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act in April 2013 will start to have an impact in the months and years ahead.'

MPS believes that a culture of learning and supporting safe practice have a significant part to play, together with controlling legal costs, in addressing a trend which cannot be sustained.