NHS pays out £1.2bn in litigation claims

A surge in the number of claims made by NHS patients or their families led to the health service paying out the sum for its clinical negligence compensation bill between 2011 and 2012.

The payouts, which represent legal costs and compensation payouts, is a huge rise on the previous year when the bill was £863m, the NHS Litigation Authority’sannual accounts show.

The bill for “non-clinical claims”, which include payouts for people falling and hurting themselves on wet floors where there was no sign, was £52.4m. Such claims could have been made by patients, staff or visitors.

The NHS LA, which was created to deal with claims from patients harmed while undergoing treatment as well as from staff and visitors, said the figure represents a surge in the number of claims between 2010 and 2011 - which were paid out this year.

In 2009 to 2010, there were 10,726 individual claims, but this jumped to 13,001 in 2010 to 2011.

In 2011 to 2012 this figure increased further to 13,761 - indicating that the compensation payouts for next year could rise higher.

Tom Fothergill, director of finance at NHS LA, said: “The financial year 2011 to 2012 has seen further increases in claims activity at every level of the NHS LA’s work.

“We were able to close more claims than ever before, but the combined effect of sharply increased claims in recent years and a continuation of the growth in new claims received this year still resulted in there being more than 5% more claims open at the end of the year.”

The Medical Defence Union (MDU) called for urgent legal reform to address the huge bill. Christine Tomkins, its chief executive, said the current situation is unsustainable.

She said: “Awards are escalating much faster than price and wage inflation. Everyone has ultimately to bear the burden of paying for this. These rises in compensation are unaffordable and can’t be allowed to continue, especially in the current economic climate, which affects us all.

“Many other countries such as the USA and Australia were forced to tackle the problem of unsustainably high compensation awards in the face of a compensation crisis. As illustrated by the figure of £1.2bn from the NHS LA, awards are getting higher and higher and we should not wait for a crisis. We need legal reform now.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “The vast majority of the millions of people seen by the NHS every year experience good- quality, safe and effective care.

“However, if patients do not receive the treatment they should and mistakes are made, it is right that they are entitled to seek compensation. Unsafe care will not be tolerated in a modern NHS.

“The NHS Litigation Authority plays a vital role in ensuring that claims are settled as swiftly as possible.

“It is difficult to determine the true nature behind increases in the number of claims being put forward, but we expect the improved processing of claims has meant claims are dealt with faster, as well as a push by solicitors to claim ahead of civil litigation reforms coming into effect in 2013.”