The powerful commons public accounts Committee has slammed "astronomically expensive" claims for negligence in the NHS. A report by the committee found that clinical negligence claims were soaring and hit out at the costs of processing the cases.
Last year the provisions for future negligence payments reached £4.4 billion. In addition to this MPs have identified "significant administrative costs".
In 65 per cent of settlements below £50,000 the legal costs exceeded the sums paid to claimants, the study found.
The MPs concluded that there was "a systematic lack of compassion" in the way the NHS dealt with claims for negligence.
Whilst the study found that "important steps" had been taken to improve access to justice, through schemes such as the introduction of conditional fee arrangements, and to speed up the processing of claims, 23,000 cases were still outstanding at the end of March 2000.
Excluding complex cases, claims were taking on average over five years to resolve.Nearly one in 10 cases is currently taking over 10 years to resolve. "This represents a clear failure of the NHS and the legal system to deal with patients with speed and compassion," the report stated.
The committee called for action to "reduce the incidence of negligence in the first place".It argued that the current review by the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, which will report soon, offered an "important opportunity to look for radical solutions" to deal with system failures.
The MPs said action must be taken to ensure that patients were offered a package of remedies so they are not forced too early into litigation. A no-blame solution should also be developed.
Alternative ways of handling claims up to £50,000 should be found to speed up cases and cut costs, the study concluded.
The committee's chairman, Edward Leigh, told ePolitix.com: "The present system for dealing with claims against the NHS is inefficient and astronomically expensive. Patients suffer delay and an almost systematic lack of compassion. Often they are effectively cornered into pursuing litigation and in more than six out of 10 smaller value cases the legal costs outweigh the compensation paid."
Patients and taxpayers were "crying out for a more intelligent approach" to the issue, he said.
Dr Christine Tomkins, Professional Services Director at the Medical Defence Union, which provides medical insurance cover to doctors agreed that something needed to be done to address the situation. "Doctors do make mistakes," she said, "but in our experience, many of these errors are due to systems failures and common pitfalls of practice and could be avoided if hospitals and trusts introduce robust procedures to correct mistakes before anyone is harmed."
