Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the use of the current mediation scheme for medical negligence disputes.

NHS Resolution manages clinical negligence and other claims against the National Health Service in England. NHS Resolution is committed to the use of dispute resolution, including the use of mediation and is working with claimant lawyers and its own lawyers on innovative approaches. This includes running pilots exploring which dispute resolution techniques work best in particular types of cases and introducing several into routine claim- handling. This approach is being developed further under NHS Resolution’s published 2025-28 strategy.

Increasingly higher numbers of NHS Resolution’s cases are now resolved pre-action using a wide range of dispute resolution techniques. These approaches can improve the experience for patients and healthcare staff through a less adversarial approach and can also reduce legal costs for both sides. In 2023/24, 81% of all clinical claims handled by NHS Resolution were resolved without court proceedings.