A powerful new lobby has joined the fight to stop the government capping costs for clinical negligence claims worth less than £25,000.

Some 28 families involved in the Shrewsbury and Telford maternity scandal have signed an open letter to health secretary Steve Barclay opposing the proposals. They describe the plans as ‘dangerous’, adding that they would deny families in a similar position access to justice and to the answers they crave.

They said that lawyers had been pivotal to breaking the ‘wall of silence’ put up by The Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal Hospitals in Shropshire in response to the deaths of 201 babies and nine mothers. The Ockenden report, published in March this year, found each death was ‘avoidable’ and happened as a result of systemic failures in care.

The families’ intervention in the fixed recoverable costs debate will be significant, given that it comes directly from victims rather than lawyers, removing any suggestion that opposition could be a result of self-interest.

Hazel Harwood, whose daughter was stillborn at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, is one of the signatories to the letter. She stressed that the support of lawyers was essential to getting accountability in her case.

‘Our baby girl was born sleeping the day after the Ockenden Report was published, and we are still waiting for answers, but with the support of our specialist lawyer I know we will get them,’ she said. ‘It breaks my heart the idea that these cost saving proposals could mean that in the future people like us could be left to fight alone. It is so important that people, victims like us, have access to legal expertise and support.’

The Department of Health and Social Care has consulted on how fixed recoverable costs might be applied to claims valued up to £25,000 and is expected to put forward reforms next year.

Introducing the consultation in January this year, health minister Maria Caulfield said that legal costs had risen to such an extent that they make up 27% of the total costs of clinical negligence. Claimant costs, she added, were much higher and had risen more quickly than defendant costs and the costs associated with low-value claims were ‘disproportionately high’.

But lawyers insist that ministers thinking only of claimant costs miss the point that these cases are often the ones that help to prevent further mistakes, and would be unaffordable to run if caps were imposed.

Paul Rumley, chair of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers (SCIL) said: ‘The scandal at Shrewsbury and Telford maternity has been shocking, and what these families have been through is truly heart-breaking. What concerns us looking ahead is that families who are seeking justice may not have the same access to specialist legal support if these government proposals go ahead.’