Clinical negligence costs the NHS £1 billion a year, says NHSLA report

Roughly £774 million was spent in damages to patients in 2014/15, with £395 million spent on legal fees. These costs equate to approximately eight million MRI scans or 61,000 liver transplants.

The report points to a number of factors that have led to the increased clinical negligence costs. These include an increase in the number of patients being treated, an increase in the number of lower value claims and excessive legal costs from some claimant firms, especially in the case of disproportionate legal costs for lower value claims.

In his foreword to the report, NHSLA chair Ian Dilks wrote: “Last year we paid over £1.1 billion to patients who suffered harm and their legal representatives, this coming year it will be [roughly] £1.4 billion and with accumulated provisions in our balance sheet of over £28 billion further significant increases are already in the pipeline. Currently over a third of what we spend each year is received by the legal profession and, as later pages explain, most of this is paid to claimants’ lawyers.

“One of our priorities for the year ahead is to therefore work with policy makers, other NHS bodies, clinicians and our scheme members to inform the debate on what might be done to reduce the financial burden on the NHS and increase the availability of scarce resources to the NHS and its patients.”

Dr Michael Devlin, MDU head of professional standards and liaison, said: “The cost of care is the main reason for the staggering negligence bill. The money paid is no reflection on clinical standards, which remain high, but it reflects the unsustainable cost of private sector health and social care packages.

“We have to stop money haemorrhaging out of the NHS in compensation awards. Today’s figures only accentuate the need for a complete rethink of personal injury law.

“Patients harmed as a result of medical negligence must be compensated so they can be properly cared for. But the increases we are seeing in clinical negligence claims inflation mean compensation awards will become unaffordable. Legal reform cannot come soon enough, especially when the health service faces such tremendous financial pressures.”

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