It has been reported that the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA), has set up its own in-house litigation team in an attempt to reduce its £120.1m external legal costs. 1 Notwithstanding, defence costs comprising only 8% of the total costs run up by the NHSLA in 2015/16, this was a 17% increase compared to the 2014/15 period.
The new team has not long been established and will have to pass a 12- month pilot with an analysis of the costs saving effect of the service before a longer term commitment can be made.
The NHSLA have said: ‘The litigation team has been established to enable some of the NHS Litigation Authority’s legally qualified staff to act in cases where court proceedings are served. Currently, these cases need to be outsourced to our legal panel’.
This outsourced legal panel consists of 11 law firms and this will not be reduced during the pilot period.
These cost saving measures come at a time when the Government’s proposals on fixed costs in clinical negligence claims are still awaited and claims received by the NHSLA decreased by 5% compared to the period in 2014/15.