The government is to postpone the controversial introduction of fixed recoverable costs for clinical negligence, previously due to come in on 1 October 2016.
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers said this week they had received confirmation from health minister Ben Gummer that the implementation would be delayed.
Clinical negligence lawyers have warned that fixed costs would make low-value cases commercially unviable, denying legal redress to people with life-changing injuries. They have also complained about the lack of a “meaningful consultation”.
Julie Say, partner at Hodge, Jones & Allen, says: “Ever since the October deadline was announced it was obvious that any implementation was going to be too tight.
“It is imperative that the government will now allow a proper consideration of how clinical negligence cases are actually run before releasing any consultation. As a consequence of the Jackson reforms, lawyers’ fees are already tightly controlled, capped and limited.”
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