Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish the cross-Government strategy on the costs of clinical negligence.

The rising costs of clinical negligence are a major concern. As set out by the National Audit Office in their September 2017 report ‘Managing the Costs of Clinical Negligence in Hospital Trusts’, between 2006-07 and 2016-17, annual cash costs for clinical negligence quadrupled from £0.4 billion to £1.6 billion. In the same period the number of claims registered with NHS Resolution doubled from 5,300 to 10,600. Funds spent on clinical negligence claims are resources that are not available for patient care and this rate of rise is unsustainable.

We are committed to tackling this issue and we are working intensively across Government, looking at all the drivers of cost. We will bring forward proposals in due course.