NHS: Compensation
(asked on 31st October 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the NHS paid in compensation in each of the last five years.
NHS Resolution (NHSR) manages clinical negligence and other claims against the National Health Service in England. NHSR administers claims covered by several indemnity schemes. The two main schemes are: the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts, which provides cover for clinical negligence claims against secondary care providers, including all NHS trusts; and the Clinical Negligence Scheme for General Practice, which provides cover for clinical negligence claims relating to NHS services provided in general practice, for incidents occurring on or after 1 April 2019. NHSR also administers the Liabilities to Third Parties Scheme for non-clinical claims against NHS trusts, such as public and employer’s liability.
The following table shows the payments made for clinical negligence claims, broken down into damages, NHS legal costs, claimant legal costs, and sum total paid, between the financial years 2019/20 and 2023/24:
Financial year | Damages paid | NHS legal costs paid | Claimant legal costs paid | Total paid |
2019/20 | £1,644,216,037 | £145,231,480 | £475,257,408 | £2,264,704,926 |
2020/21 | £1,588,102,706 | £150,740,413 | £432,972,932 | £2,171,816,051 |
2021/22 | £1,777,244,213 | £157,860,991 | £470,329,975 | £2,405,435,179 |
2022/23 | £1,985,073,662 | £161,232,916 | £489,738,305 | £2,636,044,883 |
2023/24 | £2,111,274,291 | £171,207,686 | £544,941,740 | £2,827,423,717 |
Total | £9,105,910,909 | £786,273,487 | £2,413,240,360 | £12,305,424,756 |
In addition, the following table shows the payments made for non-clinical claims, also broken down into damages, NHS legal costs, claimant legal costs, and sum total paid, between the financial years 2019/20 and 2023/24:
Financial year | Damages paid | NHS legal costs paid | Claimant legal costs paid | Total paid |
2019/20 | £29,385,103 | £7,235,444 | £18,155,566 | £54,776,113 |
2020/21 | £28,523,132 | £6,244,463 | £16,379,137 | £51,146,732 |
2021/22 | £32,118,571 | £6,529,827 | £17,314,793 | £55,963,192 |
2022/23 | £26,857,633 | £6,081,045 | £16,314,408 | £49,253,086 |
2023/24 | £26,166,825 | £7,091,718 | £16,635,005 | £49,893,548 |
Total | £143,051,264 | £33,182,497 | £84,798,910 | £261,032,671 |
Notes:
1) NHSR has advised that the values for the payments reported for each year will be different from those reported in the published Annual report and accounts (ARA), because: accruals for NHS legal costs are included in the accounting records used for the ARA and are not included at the last day of the financial year in the Claims Management System used to provide these more detailed tables; timing differences in manual postings, for instance income received is reflected in the financial records used for the ARA and not included at the last day of the financial year in the Claims Management System used to provide these more detailed tables; and payments made in 2019/20 and 2020/21 for some older general practice claims (ELGP), during their transition to NHSR, are included in the accounting records used for the ARA, however, those ELGP payments are not included in the Claims Management System used for these tables during the oversight period, as NHSR was not managing the cases within its claims management systems; and
2) there may be other compensation schemes involving the NHS that are not covered by NHSR, however, this information is not held centrally.