SCIL continues its collaboration with AvMA and NHSR. On 24 January 2023, we jointly issued a statement with AvMA and the NHSR on the progress and cost savings that appear to have been achieved as a result of the Covid-19 Clinical Negligence Protocol (“the Protocol”). Please click below for the full text. The Protocol was a document designed and drafted between SCIL, AvMA, and the NHSR. Since the implementation of the Protocol, figures published for 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 showed a 6% reduction in the volume of settled cases, which is significant and very positive. This suggests a trend against costly and stressful litigation for both parties.

​

Paul Rumley, Chair of SCIL issued the following comment:
 

“I signed this agreement on behalf of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers (SCIL), following intensive negotiations with NHSR alongside AvMA, in August 2020 at the height of the pandemic.  The figures from NHSR indicate that with a reduction of 572 litigated cases in the first year alone, at an average cost saving of £57,000 per case, this collaboration has helped to save approximately £32.6m in clinical negligence legal costs in one year – and of course, we have now had nearly 1.5 years of the Protocol in place, with nothing to indicate that the costs savings will have diminished over time. 

 

This is not only good news for innocent injured patients, whose claims will have settled without the protracted stress of court proceedings, but is also good news for taxpayer NHS funds.  It just goes to show that far from being the cause of increasing costs, specialist Claimant lawyers like those who make up the membership of SCIL, can in fact be part of cost-saving solutions if only the Government would seek and accept our specialist input – how much more could we achieve if we continue to work together without the threat of fixed costs for lower value clinical negligence claims (FRC), which will solve nothing and save no money (Government costs will likely increase as the NHS and the courts face a huge increase in litigants in person to deal with)? 

 

I strongly urge the Government to look carefully at what we have helped to achieve, and the other possible solutions we are offering to them, including the ‘SCIL Scheme’ to streamline the claims process for lower-value clinical negligence claims without the adverse consequences of fixed costs, and ideas to fix the underlying issues of a lack of patient safety learning across the whole of the NHS which result in clinical negligence claims in the first place.  I, and SCIL, remain ready to help with our specialist experience.

 

Paul Rumley, Chairman of SCIL.”