Clinical negligence: AI will open up new avenues for claims
Law firm revenue from clinical negligence cases has risen by over 7% this year to £1.8bn and will continue to grow at this rate for the next five years, researchers have predicted.
Meanwhile, the number of clinical negligence firms continues to fall, with almost 500 law firms leaving the market since the summer of 2022.
In the UK clinical negligence 2026 market trends report, IRN Legal Reports said the number of law firms working in the clinical negligence sector had been falling for the last four years and was now at 1,224, from 1,264 last summer.
It expected the larger claimant firms, which were already increasing their market share, to “take an even greater share” of lengthier cases given the cash-flow demands.
Irwin Mitchell (14% of all claimant costs paid in 2024-25) and Fletchers (6.4%) between them represented a fifth of the market and IRN said the top 10 firms had a 41.4% market share on this measure, up from the previous year.
Law firm revenue from clinical negligence cases grew by only 1.9% in 2022-23 before rising by 7% in 2023-24, 8.1% the following year and 7.4% this year.
Claimant legal fees paid by the NHS were actually largely static in 2025-26, at £622m, but this was affected by implementation of a new case management system, which slowed down the resolution of claims in the year.
This system “should start to improve the efficiency of the claims process and increase claims completed volumes”.
NHS Resolution received a record 15,236 new clinical negligence claims in the year to 31 March, 6% more than in 2024-25 – however, the number of cases registered at the Compensation Recovery Unit fell 11% to 14,562.
IRN said: “The ageing population is creating a growing demand for more medical procedures, medication, and regular care and treatments while staff in A&E departments in particular are coming under more and more pressure from increasing workloads.
“Both these factors are likely to see clinical negligence claims increase beyond the next 18 months along with other factors such as higher healthcare costs, more complex surgical procedures, and increased patient awareness of healthcare services and issues.”
IRN said the expansion of fixed recoverable costs to a wider range of clinical negligence claims remained “a real possibility”. There had been “no recent announcements” from the current government but “any potential changes continue to create uncertainty”. Fixed costs could see more firms leave the sector, the report warning.
The use of AI was “moving rapidly” in the market – it already offered the ability to summarise large quantities of information, such as medical records, but could also be used to provide and analyse expert opinions.
“The benefits of the latter is that AI could revolutionise initial triage and risk assessment processes and save costs, but right now there are still concerns around the accuracy of AI, data protection and confidentiality.”
While AI could also revolutionise healthcare in the next few years, it was also likely to open up new avenues for clinical negligence claims, with “questions to be answered” about where responsibility lay when things went wrong.
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