Ambulance-chasing lawyers were paid half a billion pounds from NHS budgets last year as clinical negligence claims spiralled out of control, a damning report by MPs reveals. Legal teams typically pocketed almost four-times more in fees than harmed patients received in compensation, the Commons Public Accounts Committee said. Costs in clinical negligence claims have risen sharply in recent years, with claimant legal fees more than tripling in real terms from £148 million in 2006/07 to £538 million in 2024/25. Notably, claims with damages of £25,000 or less - around three in every four cases - now cost far more in legal fees than victims receive, with a cost-to-damages ratio of 3.7 to 1. 'Capping legal fees for lower value clinical negligence cases can't come soon enough to control spiralling claimant legal fees.'