Lawyers bleed the NHS – Response

Posted 23/08/2010

Last weekend the News of the World re-ran the old story “Lawyers bleed the NHS” for millions in legal costs and expert fees in clinical negligence cases”.

According to the department of Health about 73,000 people die and 211,000 people are seriously injured annually by “adverse events” in NHS hospitals. Only a tiny number of deaths result in an internal hospital enquiry let alone a public inquest. Most slip away unnoticed. The injuries include cerebral palsy as in the news of the World 20th June story “botched NHS care”. Half are reckoned to be “negligent” by the strict test.

The World Health Organisation has made it a priority to reduce these tragedies, whose economic cost alone exceeds