Payouts for NHS errors double in five years

Steep rise in waiting times for treatment is leading to blunders, say patient groups

COMPENSATION paid out for harm and deaths caused by NHS delays and blunders has doubled in five years, an investigation reveals.

Patients’ groups said the increase in negligence payouts was extremely worrying – warning that lives were being lost because of a steep rise in waits for appointments, diagnosis and treatment.

Official figures reveal that in 2017-18 the NHS paid out £655million in compensation for such cases – an increase from £327million in 2013-14.

In total, 1,789 patients, or their bereaved families, received payouts in 2017-18, a rise from 1,406 in 2013-14.

They include 1,100 patients who suffered a delay or failure in treatment and 679 who were misdiagnosed, or suffered a delay in being diagnosed. And the severity of the cases meant that total damages paid out more than doubled over the period.

The figures, from NHS Resolution, the health service litigation authority, follow a sharp rise in waiting times and in cancellations of appointments.

In the past five years, the number of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for operations or other planned treatment has tripled. One in five patients diagnosed with cancer now waits more than two months for treatment.

Meanwhile, nine million hospital appointments a year are being cancelled by administrators – three times the number of a decade ago.

It comes as figures showed decades of progress driving down the number of people dying from heart disease was under threat thanks to poor lifestyles. Peter Walsh, the chief executive of charity Action against Medical Accidents, said: “These figures are extremely worrying and show that patients are suffering and even dying.

“Sadly, the figures represented by claims are probably only the tip of the iceberg,” he said, with many patients and bereaved families unaware that tragedy could have been prevented had they received diagnosis or treatment earlier.

He urged the Government to do more to prevent such harm to patients.

Prof Derek Alderson, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: “This steep increase in the number of patients awarded damages because of delays in their treatment or misdiagnosis is very concerning.

“We urgently need a plan to tackle the increasing backlog of patients on the elective waiting list, including a commitment to increase hospital bed capacity. Patients should not be left languishing in pain on lengthening waiting lists; they deserve better.”

NHS statistics show that the number of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for planned operations rose from 182,046 to 562,981 over the past five years.

More than 4.2million people are on the waiting list, compared with 2.91 million in March 2014.

The number of patients with suspected cancer waiting more than two weeks to see a specialist – despite being classed as urgent – has almost tripled over the same period. In March 2014 5,696 such patients waited longer than

two weeks, rising to 16,049 by March of this year. The figures also show more than 20 per cent of patients diagnosed with cancer now wait more than two months to start treatment. In total, there were 2,666 such cases, an increase from 1,132 in March 2014.

Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “We’ve always known that longer waiting times mean longer periods in pain and discomfort for patients, and ever-increasing risk that the treatment they are waiting for will be less effective because of the delay.

“These figures show the cost to patients of these delays, in pounds and pence: collapsing waiting time performance is causing harm to patients, in some cases so serious that it is right that they should be compensated.

“Carrying on as we are means worse experiences for patients, and taxpayers’ money being funnelled into compensation payouts for harm that was readily avoidable,” she said.

NHS plans say that by next year, patients given an urgent referral for suspected cancer should receive a diagnosis or the all-clear within 28 days.

But cancer charities are worried this will not be achieved, as the current targets have not been met for five years.

Stephen Webber, chairman of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers, said legal firms were seeing increasing numbers of claims related to failures and harm caused by long waits and misdiagnoses.

He said: “The cost of these mistakes is terrible human suffering, but also the substantial financial cost in providing the further treatment that has been caused by the errors and the potential for legal claims that could so easily have been avoided.”

An NHS spokesman said: “Millions more people are now being treated within the fast waiting times the NHS provides, with the availability of quick cancer check-ups doubling from one million patients to over two million patients a year over the past decade.

“That helps explain why NHS cancer survival is now the highest it’s ever been, and independent research has just confirmed that, thanks to improvements over the past five years, breast cancer mortality in this country is now better than in France, Germany or the European average.”