APIL president Gordon Dalyell said:

“Every penny spent on clinical negligence claims could and should be avoided, because those injuries and deaths should never have happened in the first place. None of the claims represent a ’win’ for the patient involved. They would rather not be injured needlessly and they would rather not have to go through the stress and expense of suing the NHS. The NHS Patient Safety Strategy published earlier this month includes a welcome approach to learning from clinical negligence claims to prevent harm. The NHS must do a better job of learning from its mistakes. 

“We all want to protect the health service but the simple fact is that an injured person’s needs are not reduced because the institution which caused the needless harm is so loved. The right for an innocent, injured patient to receive fair redress also must be preserved.”