Skip to content
Home page

    Navigation breadcrumbs

  1. Home
  2. Campaigns and policy work
  3. Access to justice
  4. Fixed recoverable costs in clinical negligence
DonateLogin
Home page

    Navigation breadcrumbs

  1. Home
  2. Campaigns and policy work
  3. Access to justice
  4. Fixed recoverable costs in clinical negligence

Fixed recoverable costs in clinical negligence

Our response to the Government’s consultation on limiting the legal costs claimant solicitors can recover when they win a clinical negligence case.

Legal claims for compensation following clinical negligence cost the NHS a lot of money — money that could have been spent on improving patient care. According to the National Audit Office’s 2025 report Costs of clinical negligence, clinical negligence liabilities in England now total more than £60 billion, with around £3.6 billion arising during 2024/25. Over the past ten years, NHS Resolution and the Government have tried multiple approaches to reduce these costs, but they continue to increase every year.

One such proposal in recent years has been the introduction of fixed recoverable costs (FRC) for low-value clinical negligence claims, which would limit the fees solicitors could claim from the NHS in clinical negligence litigation.

In an April 2022 consultation, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) proposed a system of FRC for claims valued up to £25,000. Avma submitted a detailed response to this consultation, which outlined several key concerns.

Our concerns with the proposal

We firmly believe that the proposals as they stood in 2022 would result in many injured people and their families losing their access to justice, not being able to find a solicitor to represent them at the rates proposed. Even if they did get representation and won, they would lose significant amounts of money from their ‘damages’ to cover some of the costs that solicitors would no longer be able to recover from the defendant.

We were also concerned that proposals would encourage a ‘deny and defend’ culture in the NHS, meaning lessons would not be learned and organisations would not be held to account, because people would no longer be able to challenge such denials. The most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society, including those from BAME communities and disabled people, would be disproportionately affected.

Read our full response

Recent developments on fixed recoverable costs

As of July 2026, no system of fixed recoverable costs has been implemented by the Government. The ongoing, rising costs of clinical negligence claims continue to be scrutinised, with the DHSC’s proposals currently undergoing a full independent review by David Lock KC.

In January 2026, the Public Accounts Committee published a report which criticised the lack of progress by the DHSC and NHS in reducing the cost of clinical negligence claims and the continuing delays to any implementation of a FRC system. In April 2026, the Clinical Negligence Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, proposing official introduction of FRC for claims up to £25,000 in value.