Existing Liabilities Scheme (ELS) ELS FAQs

The Existing Liabilities Scheme covers clinical negligence claims made against the NHS in England where the incident in question took place before April 1995. It is not a membership scheme, as it is funded centrally by the Department of Health. While initially NHS bodies were responsible for handling and funding lower-value ELS claims themselves, since April 2000 all ELS claims have been handled centrally by the NHSLA.

Claims under the ELS will often be made against NHS bodies which no longer exist, because of subsequent restructuring within the NHS. The legal defendant in such an ELS claim will be the legal “successor body” to the now-defunct NHS body. This will often be the Strategic Health Authority, as Strategic Health Authorities inherited the legal liabilities of the former District Health Authorities. Strategic Health Authorities should see our brief flyer outlining their responsibilities as regards such claims. However, in the case of incidents taking place in the early 1990s, the successor body may be an NHS trust if the hospital where the incident took place was part of one of the early NHS trusts.