No Win No Fee Solicitors Harming NHS

Thu, 02 Jul 2009

No win, no fee solicitors are a major burden on NHS finances, according the Steve Walker, head of the NHS Litigation Authority. A record £787 million had to be put aside this year as legal costs rise, with lawyers suing the NHS receiving more than £91 million in costs. Mr Walker revealed that the payouts can only come from the NHS’s budget, whilst the popularity of no win, no fee solicitor firms has further inflated the NHS’s legal costs.

One legal firm acting for parents in the Alder Hey organ retention case attempted to claim almost £4.5 million in legal fees from the NHS. In some cases, the lawyer will earn considerably more from a case than the client will receive in damages. Lawyers have defended their part in the process, insisting the reason that the legal costs can become so high is because of the amount of time taken by the NHS to settle claims. Medical negligence lawyer Russell Levy claims that the NHS solicitors often leave settling cases until the court hearing is imminent.

More than half of the 6,000 medical negligence cases faced by the NHS are from no win, no fee solicitors.
add to favouritesnewsletterlink to this pagesend to friendpost comments

Link to this page

Copy and Paste the following HTML into your page.