Lawyers call for NHS compensation claims shake-up

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has called for change of attitudes in the NHS in relation to compensation claims for the health service’s medical blunders.  Lawyers at APIL have argued that major savings could be made to the NHS if it were to cut out needless injuries and adopt a professional and efficient approach to dealing with claims when things do go wrong.

APIL’s vice-president, Neil Sugarman, has said ‘The main problem here is that the NHS has all the facts of the case at its fingertips but often fails to admit it is liable for the injury, so the injured person spends years trying to prove there was negligence, running up costs all the time, only for liability finally to be admitted at the eleventh hour.