Fixed Recoverable Costs in Lower-value Clinical Negligence Claims

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Written Statements

[The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)]

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health (Lord O’Shaughnessy) has made the following statement:

Today I am publishing a document summarising the responses we received to our consultation ‘Introducing fixed recoverable costs in lower value clinical negligence claims’.

Following the end of the consultation in May 2017, the right hon. Lord Justice Jackson published a report “Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Supplemental Report Fixed Recoverable Costs”, which included a recommendation that The Civil Justice Council should, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Social Care, set up a working party with both claimant and defendant representatives to develop a bespoke process for clinical negligence claims initially up to £25,000 together with a grid of fixed recoverable costs for such cases.

Ministers at the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice have accepted this recommendation and I would like to inform Parliament that work has commenced in setting up the working party with both claimant and defendant representatives.

The document I am publishing today sets out a summary of what we heard in our consultation, and points to The Civil Justice Council working group as the next step in developing the fixed recoverable costs policy and the report into fixed cost proposals by Professor Paul Fenn.

It is also available online at: http://www.parliament.uk/writtenstatements.

[HCWS472]