Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the propriety of his Department overseeing the consultation on a fixed recoverable cost regime in clinical negligence cases when it is the defendant in most such cases.

The Department is working closely with stakeholders to develop the proposal to introduce fixed recoverable costs. We have undertaken a pre-consultation exercise with a number of key stakeholders, including representatives of claimant lawyers, and are planning an open public consultation shortly. We welcome views on the proposal from all sectors.

The consultation documentation, including the Impact Assessment, will be published in early 2016 subject to relevant Committee clearances. We are working upon the assumption that there is nothing about Fixed Recoverable Costs regime which will alter the percentage of unmeritorious claims.

Any scheme proposed will include consideration of the right incentives to support a fairer and quicker process that provides the improvements to the system whilst maintaining access to justice.

The NHS Litigation Authority reported in their annual report for 2014/15 that it resolves over 4,000 clinical negligence cases annually for no payment of damages and in 2014/15 it saved over £1.2 billion for the National Health Service in rejecting claims which had no merit.