Mental health lawyers accuse Baird of being 'insulting'
Thursday 09 November 2006
Mental health lawyers accused legal aid minister Vera Baird of being ‘unhelpful’ and ‘insulting’ last week – despite winning key concessions from her in relation to the Carter review of legal aid procurement.
Solicitors also warned that she was ‘interfering’ in the peer review process and risked undermining its independence.
Ms Baird acknowledged that Lord Carter’s review had ‘not hit the button’ when it came to the fixed fee rates proposed for mental health work, and said it was ‘unlikely’ that a fixed-fee scheme would be ready by April 2007.
She told delegates at the Mental Health Lawyers Association (MHLA) conference that she wanted more input from solicitors in how to ‘sensitise’ the fee rates for mental health work – but that she wanted to get rid of hourly rates. ‘If you pay for hours, you get hours. It’s the way of the world,’ she said.
MHLA chairman Richard Charlton said members had been ‘insulted’ by the insinuation that they were ‘wasting time by seeing clients for too long’ under the hourly rate system, and had found her ‘style and approach’ to be ‘very unhelpful’ with a ‘lack of empathy’.
He added that he was particularly worried by Ms Baird’s ‘interference’ in the peer review process. She told delegates it was her ‘powerful view’ that peer reviewers should not be prescribing to practitioners how many times they should visit clients. She has also taken steps to remove peer review guidance from the Legal Services Commission (LSC) Web site.
Mr Charlton said he would be writing to the Lord Chancellor to express concern that a minister should be intervening in the peer review process in this way. But he said it was ‘positive’ that fixed fees would be delayed and that Ms Baird was willing to meet with mental health lawyers.
The Lord Chancellor also told delegates at the Law Society’s law management section conference this week that he wanted to ‘give the signal’ that the government needed to look ‘in some detail again’ at the mental health proposals.
