The health service could save £400m a year if the government changed the law to fix the costs for clinical negligence schemes alongside other measures, the NHS Litigation Authority has said.

  • Fixed costs for clinical negligence schemes could save NHS £400m a year, says review
  • Litigation Authority says action needed to tackle rise in claims costs
  • DH could consider delegating the authority to settle smaller legal claims to trusts

The authority, which pays out more than £1bn a year under the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts, said action was needed to tackle the growth in the number and cost of claims.

The savings figure came in the authority’s “triennial review”, an assessment carried out by the Department of Health of each of its arm’s length bodies.

The report said the main saving would come from the reduction of clinical negligence incidents after improved sharing of best practice in some clinical areas.

It gave the example of foetal heart monitoring helping to prevent brain damage to babies, one of the largest claims areas.

The report also recommended the DH and the authority should, before the end of this calendar year, start evaluating the possibility of delegating to trusts the authority to settle some smaller legal claims. It is thought this would allow the Litigation Authority to concentrate on more complex, higher value cases.

In 2013-14 it set aside £23bn to cover clinical negligence claims, up from £11.3bn in 2008-09. The majority of this (£14.6bn) was to cover the estimated value of claims that had not yet been reported.

HSJ reported last month that the DH was considering a cap on legal costs for clinical negligence claims against NHS organisations, and that it was working with the Ministry of Justice and the authority on plans.

The report’s author and the lead reviewer of the triennial reviews team, Lorraine Thomas, said: “Overall, the NHS Litigation Authority is an operationally efficient, well led and run organisation, representing good value to the public purse.

“In concluding this, the review has considered wide evidence from the [authority], comparator bodies, scheme members and other expert stakeholders on the [authority’s] performance, governance and the delivery of administrative and wider efficiencies.”

Ms Thomas’ report said the authority “performed well, closing 15,384 claims in 2013-14 against a background of rapid claims growth”.

Although some trusts have considered taking out private insurance instead of using the authority’s scheme, talks with other insurers have so far come to nothing.

Ms Thomas pointed out that the value for money displayed by the authority’s clinical negligence scheme can be demonstrated by the number of private providers that have signed up to it.

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