Compensation lawyers BANNED from hospitals after £1.7 billion bill
LAWYERS looking to drum up compensation claims against the NHS will be banned from advertising or working in hospitals from next month. Solicitors and claims management companies will be denied office space or advertising opportunities.
Health bosses said “every effort” should be made to prevent lawyers from approaching patients or families in hospital without permission.
Hospitals spent £1.7billion on negligence claims in the year to April 2017 with legal costs accounting for an estimated 36 per cent of the total bill, according to the NHS Resolution litigation figures.
Changes were outlined last March when NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said: “We want lawyers out of hospital and doctors out of court.”
The ban, which will not affect law firms who run voluntary schemes in major trauma centres, will come into force on Thursday.
An NHS spokesman said: “Money spent defending speculative legal claims is money hospitals can’t then spend on looking after patients.
“That’s why legal firms who pursue the NHS should not advertise in or operate from our hospitals.
Trusts are now prohibited from entering or renewing agreements with firms who want to sue them.”
The spokesman added: “Staying in hospital is often a traumatic experience, one that is made worse by lawyers soliciting patients or their families – a practice we are also calling on trusts to do all they can to stop.”