NHS pays £140m in negligence claims
THE NHS in Greater Manchester paid out nearly £140m in negligence claims last year.
Figures from NHS Resolution, which handles claims on behalf of NHS trusts, show that the NHS had to pay at least £139m in negligence claims in our area in the financial year 2017/18.
The total is made up of £103m in actual damages, £8m in defence costs and £28m in claimant costs. It is up from £93m in 2016/17. Of the £139m, £925,499 was for claims where the incident took place before April 1, 1995.
However, since the amount paid by some trusts is less than £5,000, the actual costs paid is not reported to preserve confidentiality of patients and the total amount paid in Greater Manchester could be even higher.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust alone paid £36m in 2017/18 – the biggest amount locally and the third nationally.
The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust had the second highest amount paid out at £25m.
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust paid out £16m – the third highest amount in Greater Manchester.
There are four clinical negligence schemes that cover defence and claimant legal costs as well as damages – but the figures from NHS Resolution only include two of these schemes, meaning that the total amount paid under all four schemes could be even higher.
Nationally, total payments relating to NHS clinical schemes increased by £520.4m from £1.7bn to £2.2bn.
NHS Resolution said the cost increase was partly due to pay-outs for claims that were made in previous years.
However, £404m of the additional expenditure was because of a change in the Personal Injury Discount Rate (PIDR) on March 20, 2017.
The PIDR is a way to calculate the appropriate amount of compensation to claimants who have suffered life-changing injuries.
The PIDR was changed by the government in such a way that the cost of large personal injury claims, with an element of future loss of earnings, have gone up significantly.
This change has been branded ‘foolish’ by experts.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents health service organisations across the healthcare sector, said: “Part of this [the increasing amount spent] is down to a foolish change in the way compensation is calculated, which will hopefully be addressed by Parliament, but this still paints a hugely troubling picture.”