Time to reform clinical negligence law to end the ‘blatant gaming’ of the system

The chief executive of the doctors’ organisation MDDUS has today called on the government to reform clinical negligence law to prioritise early settlement and deter unjustified cases.

Responding to a new report by the House of Commons’ influential Public Accounts Committee, Chris Kenny said: “In addition to the ‘astounding’ cost of payouts cited in the report, the NHS and medical defence organisations like ours face significant additional time and costs in successfully defending the many claims of no merit that are now regularly brought against doctors.

“That sum is further increased by our actions to contest absurdly large settlement amounts when a fair and rapid offer is already on the table. In these cases, neither the NHS nor MDOs rarely recover their costs.

“That’s not just a cost for doctors and the taxpayer, but it also means that cases that do merit settlement progress more slowly to the detriment of patients. We have to get incentives right to stop this blatant gaming.”

The PAC report noted that the Department of Health and Social Care has set aside £58.2bn to cover the potential cost of clinical negligence events that happened in England before 1 April 2024.

In its recommendations it called on the DHSC to ‘manage the costs of clinical negligence more effectively, including introducing a mechanism to reduce legal fees’.

The report also highlighted its dismay that 19% of the money awarded to claimants goes to their lawyers.

Mr Kenny said: “It has taken the last two governments eight years to introduce a cap on fixed recoverable costs at the pitifully low level of £25,000, which will have little or no effect on the number of unmeritorious claims.

“Focussing attention on real patient harm necessarily involves getting the incentives right to drive these cases out of the system as well.”

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