APIL president Brett Dixon said:

“NHS Resolution is complaining about the discount applied to large compensation payments. That makes very bleak reading because now, finally, injured people are getting what they need. The NHS has been undercompensating for its negligence for many years. It is now simply paying what it always should have. 

The futures of more than 200 families are devastated each year by avoidable, disastrous failures in maternity care. These babies with life-long birth injuries and brain damage are exactly the people who are helped by the correction to the discount rate and that news should be welcomed. It is crucial that Parliament gets it right with the Civil Liability Bill and does not force catastrophically injured people back to a time when they had to take risks when investing their compensation to make it stretch for the rest of their lives.

“When undercompensated injured people run out of money, or they lose it on investments, they turn to the NHS and the State for their care. So the NHS not only pays for its own negligence, but also the negligence of others who are responsible for paying compensation for needless harm”.