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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

99A: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause— ““Report reviewing claims for clinical negligence (1) In discharging his functions under section 1(4) above, the Lord Chancellor shall have regard to the report of a review under this section. (2) The Lord Chancellor must, before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, appoint an independent person to review generally claims for clinical negligence and means of improving the modes, procedures and outcomes relating to the same. (3) The review must address, in particular, (a) the accessibility, cost, effectiveness, openness, fairness, proportionality and speediness of such claims, and (b) any other matters the Lord Chancellor considers appropriate. (4) After the person appointed under subsection (2) has completed the review, he or she must compile a report of conclusions. (5) As part of their conclusions the reviewer may propose such voluntary scheme or schemes as he or she shall see fit. (6) In this section ““claims”” shall mean claims and complaints made by patients receiving services provided in the United Kingdom and commissioned in England in respect of a liability in tort or contract owed in respect of personal injury or loss arising in connection with breach of a duty of care owed to any person in connection with the diagnosis of illness, or in the care or treatment of any patient of an NHS body, a primary care or independent provider. (7) The Lord Chancellor must lay before Parliament a copy of the report compiled under subsection (4).””