Law Society asks for responses to clinical negligence fixed fees survey

The Law Society has launched a survey on how clinical negligence claims could be affected by fixed costs given their duration and complexity, in order to help it respond to a Government consultation on the issue.

The Society hopes to gather data about the total charges made by firm with respect to clinical negligence cases, examples of successfully completed pre and post-LASPO cases, and any other relevant information.

Chancery Lane said that if it was to respond “robustly” to the consultation, then it needed as much data as possible that its members could provide.

In the summer, the Department of Health proposed the introduction of fixed recoverable costs for claims worth up to £100,000, which it said would save around £80m a year for the NHS. At the time, the Law Society responded by saying that the simplest and most effective way of reducing the cost of clinical negligence claims to the NHS was to reduce the harm caused to patients by negligent NHS care.

More information on the survey can be found here.

Mark Dugdale