Medical Negligence Payments Rise More Than 20% In A Year

The NHS Litigation Authority annual report has been released, showing that medical negligence claims have risen by more than 20% in a year. The Litigation Trust blames no win no fee solicitors and compensation farmers that prowl the halls of hospitals encouraging patients to claim for compensation. Individually, some claims were worth £5m each while the number of babies that suffered brain damage as a result of medical negligence was a regrettable stand-out statistic.

Every year, the NHS Litigation Authority releases a report that shows exactly how much they have had to pay out in compensation to patients that feel they have been the subject of medical negligence. The government has recently taken steps to try and cut the cost of these claims but, if the recent litigation report is anything to go by, the changes will need to be more dramatic to have the kind of influence the Prime Minister is hoping for.

£22.7bn of the health service’s annual budget has had to be set aside for the payment of medical negligence claims. This is equivalent to around one fifth of the total claims made and has come as a result of a massive increase in the number of people making claims against healthcare professionals and institutions.

More than 16,000 patients have lodged complaints in 2012/2013 which is a notable increase on the 13,500 lodged in the previous year. Many of these cases are related to well publicised and heavily criticised scandals that have rocked the NHS in this country. Such cases include 120 victims of the Mid Staffordshire Foundation trust, with claims totalling £1.2m and just 14 hospitals have paid out a total of £234m in the past three years alone.

The highest individual payments are those concerning babies left with brain damage as a result of medical negligence. Claims of more than £5m have also been filed from some of the highest earners. Alarmingly, cases where the patient has died as a result of poor care tend to attract some of the lowest payments – the average payment awarded to families of 1,200 deceased patients at a Mid Staffordshire hospital was just £10,000.

Medical Negligence ClaimsSep 1st, 20130 comments