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February 7th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Health Service sets aside £15.7bn to deal with ‘no-win, no-fee’ claims
- Compensation claims cost NHS more as one third of money paid out goes straight to lawyers
By
Daniel Martin
Last updated at 12:08 AM on 7th February 2012
An avalanche of claims against doctors has left the Health Service with a £15.7billion bill.
The sum – one seventh of the annual NHS budget – has had to be set aside to pay compensation over future years to tens of thousands of victims of clinical negligence.
A report by MPs reveals that much of the bill is the result of blunders that have left babies brain-damaged.
The rise on the Health Service bill is being partly blamed on ‘no win no fee’ lawyers who encourage people to make claims as they don’t pay costs if they lose
Advances in medical science mean that these children live much longer, increasing their lifelong care bill.
But a substantial part of the rise is also being blamed on ‘no-win no-fee’ lawyers, who encourage patients to make negligence claims because they will not have to pay costs if they lose.
If the patients win, the NHS has to pay even more than normal because no-win no-fee lawyers charge more to defendants to cover their own bills in lost cases.
Around a third of all the money paid out by the NHS in compensation goes straight into the pockets of lawyers.
The £15.7billion figure, which dates from 2009/10, is 13 per cent up on the liability bill from the previous year.
Officials admit it could be an underestimate because, if more court cases than expected go against the NHS, the full cost could exceed £23billion.
The figure is contained in a report on the ‘Whole of Government Accounts’ by the public accounts committee. It also revealed the full cost of Labour’s PFI deals.
It shows that in 2009/10 – Labour’s last year in power – the NHS believed that clinical negligence claims would cost it £15.7billion over future years.
This is an actuarial calculation, based on the number of claims the NHS believes there is a very good chance of it not being able to defend, the severity of the claimed errors and how much a victim would be paid out for these mistakes.
The figure includes an estimate of the cost of mistakes that have not yet been claimed for.
Last year, more than 8,500 clinical negligence claims were received by the NHS – 30 per cent up on 2009/10. Around £1billion is actually paid each year to victims of blunders. In the report, the Public Accounts Committee warns: ‘Claims for clinical negligence outstanding at 31 March 2010 could cost £15.7billion, or 15 per cent of the government’s total provision for future expenses arising from events that have happened in the past.
‘The Treasury … did not know that clinical claims recorded by the NHS Litigation Authority had increased by some 31 per cent in 2010/11 or what plans were in place to reduce liabilities for clinical negligence.’
Peter Walsh of Action Against Medical Accidents said: ‘One of the most unhelpful things that has happened in recent years is the increase in the more disreputable lawyers who get involved in no-win no-fee deals. This makes it all the more baffling that the Government wants to scrap legal aid for clinical negligence cases. This will encourage claims farmers and no-win no-fee, leaving the NHS to pick up the tabs. This bill will increase.’
Emma Boon of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘It is extremely worrying that clinical negligence is costing taxpayers billions – especially as no-win no-fee solicitors and a growing compensation culture are partly responsible.’
She added: ‘Health chiefs need to learn lessons from negligence cases and urgently address this issue. The cost to taxpayers is shockingly high.’ A source at the Ministry of Justice said there were concerns that lawyers may be artificially inflating the cost of claims.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: ‘The vast majority of the millions of people treated by the NHS every year experience good quality, safe and effective care.
‘However, if patients do not receive the treatment they should, and mistakes are made, it is right that they are entitled to compensation and the NHS Litigation Authority plays a vital role in ensuring claims are settled as swiftly as possible.
‘The Government’s ambitious proposals for reforming the civil litigation system will support the NHS in dealing with costly litigation cases.
‘We want to strike the right balance between access to compensation claims and ensuring costs are proportionate, sustainable and affordable.’
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– Mike Greenstein, London, UK, 07/2/2012 02:56
Completely agree. I used to be an associate Lawyer for a PI solicitors and you can guarantee that the only way you could get the NHS litigation team to pay out would be to take them to the Court steps. They would always make you make the most expensive decisions before accepting any liability or paying out any damages. And when it came to our bill, my God, the amount of times we issued Court proceedings just to get those paid! We recently claimed for a lady who lost her kidney because her urologist had left a nephrostomy stent (a little tube they put into the kidney and bladder if you have trapped kidney stones) in situ for 6 months. It made her septic and she lost one kidney and part of her bladder. She now needs a transplant and is on dialysis and has to wear a catheter, she’s only 23. If doctors and hospitals don’t want to be sued, they shouldn’t make such stupid mistakes.
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A third of the fee goes to the lawyers? That’s no surprise at all. As a claimant personal injury solicitor, I can tell you that any solicitor who has come up against the NHS Litigation Authority will vouch for the fact that they defend the indefensible, only paying out many claims after issue (commencement) of legal proceedings or on the approach to the door of the court. If they settled claims at the correct time rather than fighting to the death with a wish that the injured claimant gives up, then the legal costs (including that of their own solicitors) and therefore the bill would be a fraction of what it currently is.
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What wrong with no win no fee, everyone else in the country works on that basis, where if they cant deliver the goods or services they offer, they dont get the fee. Why should lawyers be any different. They should all be forced to do no win no fee, because right now, they just cherry pick the easy winners, and refuse to take the others on that basis, but if you have a weak to un-winnable case, they will still take it if you put the cash down on their desk. They will tell you that you have a good chance of winning, charge you a fortune in costs, for a case that should never go to court, as you have no chance.
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Unfortunately people aren’t perfect and doctors will always make mistakes. We need to continually strive to minimize errors and their impacts and find the most cost effective way of compensating patients. I’m not sure this is being done at the moment.
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Well maybe if they did the job right they wouldn’t face the fines! It’s not rocket science! Don’t be negligent and it won’t cost you!
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Anyone with any sense whatsoever should have known that Labours PFI bill was going to be HUGE. And also any fool knows that no win no fee is a racket, that could have been stopped by the Government any time it wished . The problem with Government is that they have not a clue what goes on under their noses. Proof of this will be what they are going to do with the NHS . It will cost twice as much as they thought and will be a disaster, and any nurse on the wards could tell them that
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Then hire the right people, not ones that make mistakes and them hide them, maybe offer proper treatment, not just put aside people or make them come back every 3 months just to be told to come back again.
The NHS makes their own problems by not treating people properly until it gets to a stage were the illness costs even more money, nip it in the bud at the start so it doesn’t get out of hand.
The NHS does not diagnose people properly first time round, hence why people always keep going back to see a different doctor and the problem never gets resolved, cost the NHS even more money.
I have problems with my ear and have been told that its my depression thats causing it, yet one i first had the problem i never had depression for at least 3 years, my depression developed because i wasnt being properly treated and I could not take anymore of the pain.
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