Mediation and clinical negligence claims

Sir, – Mary Carolan’s article “Mediation often ‘cathartic’ in catastrophic injury cases but it shouldn’t be compelled, experts” (News, March 11th) discusses the pros and cons of mediation in resolving clinical negligence claims, and how the introduction of pre-action protocols could help to facilitate mediation at an earlier stage in the litigation process, when legal costs are lower.

A pre-action protocol provides the opportunity to investigate and resolve claims sooner, without the need to go to court, by promoting early identification of issues and exchange of information between the parties. While we acknowledge mediation may not be suitable or appropriate for every case, at the Medical Protection Society we have long called for the formal introduction of pre-action protocols to facilitate early resolution of many more claims. We believe this would reduce delays in providing compensation to patients, reduce the stress that patients and healthcare professionals endure during litigation, and reduce legal costs for all parties.

The Government has accepted the recommendation for pre-action protocols – the final step is for it to draft the necessary regulations to enable the formal introduction. This is something we believe can be done quickly as the legal powers required already exist. Due to the ever-increasing cost in clinical negligence claims and the stress that unnecessarily long processes can cause, this issue is becoming more pressing, and we need to see swift progress. – Yours, etc,

Dr ROB HENDRY,