Brian Capstick's views will come as a surprise to people who suppose that negligence litigation is out of control or a large burden to the NHS. As he shows, it costs well under 1% of turnover, and most of that is the cost of caring for birth injured children, a bill that ought to be met under any system. Given that there are 850 000 adverse events causing harm, 6000 claims seems modest.

The volume of claims is also falling. Making Amends noted that it had fallen in two successive years from a peak of 8000. …