Govt warned by NHS lawyers over cuts to free legal advice

Before the government published its bill concerning cuts to free legal advice services it was warned about the reduction in spending by NHS lawyers, it has been claimed.

The NHS Litigation Authority (LA) told the authorities that NHS costs would increase for clinical negligence claims if free legal advice was scrapped for these cases, the Law Society Gazette reported.

In addition, the NHS lawyers cautioned that some people who were seriously injured would no longer be able to bring cases as a result of the move.

The lawyers, who deal with claims against the NHS, claimed that claimants would be able to use conditional fee agreements more if free legal advice services were cut, which would mean the NHSLA would have to pay higher legal costs if it lost a case.

Jonny Mulligan of Sound Off For Justice pointed out that the report by the lawyers showed that the Department of Health no longer has faith in the Ministry of Justice's cuts to legal aid, leftfootforward.org reported.

Published by Hannah Carr