Negligence claims cost trust £10m
REPORT SHOWS AMOUNT PAID OUT BY HOSPITALS LAST YEAR
A NEW report has revealed the region’s hospital trust paid a total of £10.2m in clinical negligence claims last year.
Half of all claims settled by the trust which runs Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill hospital in Cottingham related to issues around diagnosis.
Other categories for payouts included poor assessment of clinical conditions, delays in the administartion of medication, failures to monitor patients properly and issues around documentation.
A recent report to the trust’s board says payments totalling £10.2m were paid through the trust’s insurers in the last financial year to March.
A spokeswoman for Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “Our aim is to provide the best possible care for every patient but, regrettably, there are occasions when things go wrong or we do not deliver the high standard of care to which we aspire.
“The number of claims settled by the trust has reduced by a fifth in the past year, from 126 in 2018-19 to 102 in 2019-20, and the number of patients making claims against our hospitals remains very low in the context of over one million patient contacts every year.
“In those rare cases where there is a legitimate cause for redress, we seek to settle claims as swiftly as possible through NHS Resolution.”
The board report says 781 claims against the trust are currently open.
Of these, 487 have not yet progressed beyond requests from solicitors for the disclosure of patients’ records while a further 33 claims have previously been settled and are awaiting formal closure.
That leaves a total of 251 claims being actively pursued.