On 21 March 2017 the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the NHS Litigation Authority will change its name to ‘NHS Resolution’.
During the announcement, the Health Secretary stated that the NHS Litigation Authority will radically change its focus from simply defending NHS litigation claims to the early settlement of cases, learning from what goes wrong and the prevention of errors.
This rebrand follows the launch of the NHS LA mediation service in December 2016 whereby mediation contracts were awarded to the Centre of Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), Trust Mediation and Costs Alternative Dispute Resolution (CADR).
Mediation is a forum of dispute resolution and provides injured patients and their families with an opportunity for face-to-face explanations regarding what went wrong with the care they were provided with.
It is hoped that these positive changes that the NHS LA are implementing will assist with settling cases at an earlier stage of a claim, therefore providing a suitable conclusion without the need to issue Court proceedings and subsequently saving costs for the Claimant and solicitors.
It will be interesting to see how the NHS Resolution deals with cases in view of these changes over the next few months it is evident that things will not change overnight after a name change.