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It is cheaper to cut damages than to spend money eradicating the underlying avoidable negligence.

It would be even easier to change the protocol so that ATE was not possible until after an initial response, and the letter of notification prompts an investigation by the relevant Trust. The NHS might hate that as they'd have to investigate 10 times as many claims. They'd save on the breach investigation/reports and ATE side of things though, provided they were bound by any admissions.

For me, solicitor costs are too high as there is an ingrained culture of doing every possible thing on a case to maximise costs, hence large bills. Most of us will have, or have had, billing/hourly targets and that is the underlying problem.

I can just imagine how much work would be chopped out if we went to fixed costs. Anything that wasn't needed would be dropped immediately.

In summary, the system is broken not the costs.

A claimant clinical negligence solicitor.