NHS medical negligence liabilities hit £58.2bn amid calls to improve patient safety

The NHS’s full liabilities for aesculapian negligence person deed an “astounding” £58.2bn amid ministers’ nonaccomplishment to amended diligent safety, an influential radical of MPs person warned.

The Commons nationalist accounts committee (PAC) said the “jaw-dropping” sums being paid to victims of botched attraction and authorities inaction to trim errors were “unacceptable”.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has acceptable speech £58.2bn to settee lawsuits arising from objective negligence that occurred successful England earlier 1 April 2024, the PAC disclosed.

The sum is truthful immense that it is the second-largest liability crossed the full of government, with only atomic decommissioning costlier, the committee said successful a damning report.

“The information that authorities has acceptable speech tens of billions of pounds for objective negligence payments, its 2nd astir costly liability aft immoderate of the world’s astir analyzable atomic decommissioning projects, should springiness our full nine pause,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the PAC chair.

“This is simply a motion of a strategy struggling to bash close by the radical it is designed to help,” helium added.

The PAC urged ministers to instrumentality urgent steps to trim “tragic incidences of diligent harm” and to besides extremity a concern wherever lawyers instrumentality an “astronomical” 19% of the compensation awarded to those who are palmy successful suing the NHS. That amounted to £536m of the £2.8bn that the wellness work successful England paid retired successful damages successful 2023-24 – its grounds measure for mistakes.

“Far excessively galore patients inactive endure objective negligence which tin origin devastating harm to those affected,” and the ensuing damages drain captious funds from the NHS, the study said.

A DHSC root accepted the PAC’s findings, saying: “The outgo of objective negligence claims is rising astatine an unsustainable rate, eating into resources disposable for frontline care. Annual currency payments person much than doubled successful the past 10 years and quadrupled successful the past 17 years to £2.8bn.”

The PAC criticised the section for not yet having explained wherefore diligent harm occurs and devised a strategy to overhaul diligent safety, contempt the committee successful the past parliament asking the DHSC bash truthful by past summer. The DHSC “has lone precocious written to america successful response” to that recommendation, the PAC said.

“It is unacceptable that the section is yet to make a program to woody with the outgo of objective negligence claims and truthful overmuch taxpayers’ wealth is being spent connected ineligible fees,” the study says.

Paul Whiteing, the main enforcement of diligent information foundation Action Against Medical Accidents, said that lawsuits arose implicit errors by NHS unit successful each country of care. “But the largest sums are awarded to families of babies that are near with lifelong disabilities, specified arsenic encephalon damage, done negligence astatine birth.”

The NHS has faced a bid of maternity attraction scandals successful caller years that person near mothers and babies dormant oregon severely injured. In 2023 the Care Quality Commission, the wellness work attraction regulator, said that two-thirds of maternity units provided substandard care.

The NHS would look less lawsuits if it was much unfastened erstwhile mistakes happen, Whiteing added.

“We spot galore radical who lone litigate due to the fact that the NHS ‘pulled down the shutters’, by which I mean failed to decently look into what went wrong, connection a meaningful apology for their mistake and impact the household successful the investigation. If steps specified arsenic these were followed, galore less radical would edifice to litigation,” helium said.

Jess Brown-Fuller, a Liberal Democrat wellness spokesperson, said the immense outgo of NHS aesculapian negligence payouts are “symptomatic of a wellness work that simply is not functioning. The Labour government’s clasp of dither and hold connected societal care, maternity reforms and rebuilding our hospitals is prolonging the misery.”

In its investigation of the DHSC’s yearly study and accounts for 2023-24, the PAC besides revealed the outgo of gathering long-planned caller precocious containment labs successful Harlow, Essex, to assistance support the UK against infectious diseases, had spiralled from £530m to “an eye-watering projected £3.2bn”.

And it criticised the authorities for not spelling retired what interaction its determination to abolish NHS England and axe tens of thousands of wellness work managers would person connected patients and staff. It voiced interest astir cuts to dentistry, GP services and wellness prevention.

Matthew Taylor, the main enforcement of the NHS Confederation, echoed the PAC’s unease. “While galore leaders recognize the request for change, the deficiency of item connected however the nationalist shake-up volition beryllium taken forward, the gait of this restructure, and however it connects to the ambitions of the 10-year program are a origin for interest among staff,” helium said.

A DHSC spokesperson said: “Patient information is the bedrock of a steadfast NHS and societal attraction system. This authorities volition guarantee the state has the champion strategy successful spot to support patients harmless by overhauling the overly analyzable bureaucracy of healthcare regularisation and oversight and we volition analyse the drivers of costs, however to negociate spending connected objective negligence and the imaginable merits of betterment options.”