The BBC has reported that the ‘NHS faces huge clinical negligence legal fees bill’

22nd January 2020

The BBC’s Angus Crawford reports a Freedom of Information request has revealed that the NHS in England ‘faces paying our £4.3bn in legal fees to settle outstanding claims of clinical negligence’. This figure includes all current unsettled claims and projected estimates of ones in the future – each year the NHS receives more than 10,000 new claims for compensation.

The BBC further reported that ‘the Department of Health has pledged to tackle “the unsustainable rise in the cost of clinical negligence”. Estimates published last year put the total cost of outstanding compensation claims at £83bn. NHS England’s total budget in 2018-19 was £129bn.’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51180944

IE acknowledge there are many complex issues at stake here, including patient safety, and the human cost behind Clinical Negligence claims. IE provide a user friendly, efficient, pragmatic process where claims can be resolved within weeks and without the negative impact of adversarial litigation. Given the undoubted importance of these claims to all parties, the IE process is handled by specialist Deputy High Court Judges and Queen’s Counsel, who act as an entirely neutral evaluator of the claims.

Utilising early neutral evaluation through IE provides a means to avoid significant delay and considerably wasted costs. The Civil Justice Council has already recommended mandatory evaluation as the preferred method of resolving lower value clinical negligence claims (August 2019).

Read more to see how IE can assist in cases ranging from highly complex issues through to lower value claims.