Legal aid: the end of the road?
In line with other government initiatives to reduce public spending, a review is currently taking place into the future of legal aid in clinical negligence matters.Tees are extremely concerned about the implications of this proposal for access to justice . If the proposed changes are introduced, it is clear that it will become far more difficult, if not impossible, for those who have been injured as a result of a medical accident to investigate and bring a claim. We often hear from our clients that that they are not bringing a claim for personal gain but out of the need to ensure that the particular problem never happens to anyone else ever again. Without legal aid, the government will, at a stroke, be removing an important check on the standards of healthcare at a time when there is widespread concern about standards of care within the NHS. Removing funding is an all too easy way for the government to reduce its liabilities, as it is more often than not the government who is the defendant in these cases.We recognize that no amount of money can provide true compensation for an injury but obtaining an award of damages is always a concrete recognition of failings and can provide for care needs and other significant losses, such as loss of earnings.Without legal aid, many injured people may be left with nowhere to turn, often at a very vulnerable time in their lives. Although other forms of funding are currently available, these too are under threat by the government and therefore the concern is that they may well not provide a viable alternative in the future.Tees has been fighting to save legal aid, including lobbying local MPs. This week, received a letter from Mr Ken Clarke which suggested that the Government wants to:achieve substantial savings from the MOJ's budget discourage people from resorting to lawyer whenever they face a problem encourage people to consider alternative methods of dispute resolution reserve tax payer funding for legal advice and representation for serious issues which have sufficient priority to justify the use of public funds, subject to people's means and merits of the case, such as those cases where a litigant's life is at stake, or involving the loss of liberty, homelessness, physical harm or in cases involving children being taken into care retain legal aid via a proposed scheme for excluded cases for high cost medical negligence cases onlyThe indication that legal aid will remain available for catastrophic cases, such as those involving brain injury, is welcome. However, for the vast majority of patients who have suffered negligent medical or dental treatment and are seeking damages against any type of public or private medical practitioners, this will come as little comfort. The suggestion is that legal aid will no longer be available for medical negligence claims generally, notwithstanding Ken Clarke's concession that "..these...claims for monetary compensation ... often raise very serious issues, especially where the damages are required to meet future needs and some litigants will be vulnerable because of disabilities resulting from the negligent treatment...".The Government was due to publish their response to the Consultation on Tuesday 29 March 2011, but has, today, suggested that this will now be published after Easter. It does, however, seem that the die may well have already been cast.