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In fairness, John, the FT article did make it clear that the £21bn figure was for all contingencies including the ones you describe, apart from the request for records. But it did detail how the figure had been estimated and it was quite worrying at approximately 20% of the NHS annual spending.

My real beef is that, having worked closely with the surgeons of one specialist hospital for over 20 odd years, I can safely say that all the clinicians I came across were serious, conscientious, dedicated professionals, far more so than the lawyers I encountered over the same period. And a good part of the time some claims seemed to be fishing trips in the hope of getting something and in the knowledge that if successful a cheque would be forthcoming. That is really at the heart, so to speak, of the problem.