When the NHS spends billions on personal injury cases, it’s the public that loses

‘Damages paid by the NHS as a result of medical negligence claims have soared exponentially over the last decade, up from £900m to £2.2bn now.’ Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

“Let’s kill all the lawyers,” cries a rebel in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2, raising a loud audience cheer. Now it’s Jeremy Hunt and his health and social care committee that threatens to skewer lawyers, specifically the personal injury ambulance-chasers, who are of course outraged.

Hunt’s radical plan to reform compensation for clinical negligence is “completely unacceptable” says the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, which includes some of the kinds of firms that urge people to sue the NHS, soliciting online, in TV ads or posters in waiting rooms.