NHS hospitals advertising personal injury agencies, BBC reports

The BBC has reported that NHS trusts are being paid up to £200,000 annually to advertise personal injury lawyers on patient advice leaflets.

Such companies have contracts with hospital trusts across the UK enabling them to have their services advertised on the reverse of advice leaflets.

Senior NHS managers have admitted that while the leaflets are not ‘ethically ideal’ the advertising method was used by many hospitals.

The news comes as total payouts for clinical claims hit £1.48 billion in 2015-16, legal firms' costs have also risen to an average 55 per cent of the total claim value, where damages are below £100,000.

Pro Vision, a leading provider of NHS patient advice cards, sad: “The only advertisers who will spend the money required to fund this free service are personal injury lawyers. Certain hospital A&E departments, especially around the North and Midlands, can generate very large numbers of claims.

"Companies have been played off against each other not just to provide the best advice cards and service, but to create income for the trusts. We know two trusts have used this money to pay months of overdue overtime.

"In one case, an A&E department which only had three heart monitors used the money we provided to buy eight new ones."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health told the BBC: "NHS bodies should not consider advertising personal injury or claims management services and equipment should be funded from a sustainable funding source," said a spokesperson.

"However, this form of advertising is a matter for individual trusts."

Meanwhile, Dr Sarah Wollaston, chair of the Commons Health Select Committee, said: "I think people will be surprised about this considering the costs of NHS litigation. This process is encouraging people to make a claim they they might not otherwise have done."