NEWS DIGEST VIEWPOINT
By Simon Dinnick, General Counsel at MDDUS
Down in the ministry something stirs
As someone who has spent (almost) a career defending doctors and dentists against litigation claims, the last few years have been some of the least fair that I can recall. Litigation in England and Wales at least (and increasingly in Scotland I suspect) have been not only firmly tilted in favour of the claimant, but also strongly tilted in favour of the remuneration which claimant lawyers can derive from clinical negligence claims. Whilst there are a number of reasons why this is so, two can perhaps be highlighted and are finally being addressed. Firstly, lawyers' charging rates are calculated traditionally so as to provide quite reasonably a profit return for the partners owning the law firms taking the risk. There is no problem with that. Where there has become a problem is in the concept of conditional fee add-ons – "success fees" which can permit charging rates to be marked up often by 100 per
cent in the event of success. A typical specialist firm in London might be allowed to charge in the order of £400 an hour for a partner rate and to achieve a success rate of 100 per cent on that figure, making the hourly charge some £800. Wouldn’t we all like to be that lucky? Secondly, in recent years there has been the development in our field of an "after the event" insurance industry which has the effect of offering policies to protect a claimant against the financial cost of losing by insuring that risk. In the event that the claimant is successful that premium (often and usually many thousands of pounds) will be recovered from the defendant (or his defence organisation). The combined effect of these two
practices has been not only that a claimant can litigate against a doctor without fear of being financially penalised in the event that he loses, but also that he effectively hands the conduct of his claim to the solicitor he instructs who in turn has the interest in achieving success with heavy mark up on his hourly rate and knowing that an insurance company will pay his costs in the event that he loses the case. That culture is not a healthy one. By virtue of reforms going through
Parliament at the moment, these weaknesses should be eradicated. Firstly, the kind of success fees referred to above will be abolished and secondly the insurance premiums of after-the-event insurance will no longer be recoverable from the defendants. There will be a change in the calculation of damages to provide for an increase out of which litigation funding can be provided for claimants. Claimants' solicitors will be allowed to charge a contingency fee to their clients to be recovered out of any successful damages. In this way a degree of equality of arms should return to the litigation canvass and the costs of litigation should come down, not only to the benefit of doctors, dentists and their defence organisations but arguably in the broader public interest to ensure that costs do not become the dominant feature in the resolution of medical disputes. There have been many false dawns in the need for reform, but following a comprehensive review by Lord Justice Jackson over the last couple of years, the Government has accepted these recommendations amongst others and has found Parliamentary time to ensure that they will be delivered. Roll the day and roll the dice.
Rise in complaints about private dental care
COMPLAINTS about private dental care made to the Dental Complaints Service (DCS) have risen by almost a quarter since 2009. New figures show complaints jumped by
24 per cent from 1,180 in 2009/2010 to 1,559 in 2010/2011. The DCS also revealed that of the 1,559 complaints made between May 2010 and the end of April 2011, 67 per cent were resolved within a week. The most common non-clinical reason for complaint in 2010/2011 was failure of
The health information company Dr Foster reports in the tenth edition of its Hospital Guidethat patients admitted to NHS hospitals for emergency treatment during the weekend are almost 10 per cent more likely to die than those admitted during the week and in
WINTER 2012 some trusts rates were found to rise
20 per cent or more. l GDC ACTS TO SPEED UP CASE HANDLING An increase in the number of decision meetings and hearings to clear a backlog of cases and an improved process to fast track the most serious ones are
treatment (862 complaints) followed by concerns from patients that they were ‘uninformed’ (158). Others complained about post-operative pain (121) or that
they were ignored (110). Clinical complaints were most commonly made about crown treatments (239) followed by root canal (142). There were 126 complaints made about bridge work while 112 complaints were made about amalgam fillings. Dentists were the focus of the
overwhelming majority of complaints (1,519) followed by dental technicians (17) and hygienists (13). Clinical dental technicians were the subject of eight complaints while dental nurses prompted only two complaints.
among a raft of changes announced by the GDC to improve the handling of complaints against dental professionals. A GDC statement released in October says the changes mark the first phase of a complete overhaul of its complaints handling (fitness to practise) processes.
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