Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department has spent on (a) providing maternity care and (b) settling legal cases of medical negligence related to maternity care in each of the last four years.

In regard to maternity care spend, according to the Patient-Level Costing dataset from the National Cost Collection for the National Health Service, the annual spend for providing maternity care was as follows:

• £4,855,676,069.19 for 2021/22;
• £4,722,376,594.65 for 2022/23; and
• £5,174,161,637.32 for 2023/24.

Data is not yet available for the 2024/25 financial year.

NHS Resolution manages clinical negligence and other claims against the NHS in England. The table attached shows the spend on maternity clinical claims either closed or settled with a periodical payment order (PPO) between the 2021/22 and 2024/25 financial years, broken down by closure, or settlement PPO, year, for claims with obstetrics or neonatology as the primary specialty.

The data includes the damages and legal costs paid up until 31 March 2025. It does not include future periodical payments on settled claims that are due after the end of the 2024/25 financial year.

Please note that this is different to the value of claims “notified” in a year for obstetrics and neonatology. Data on “notified claims value” only includes an early estimate of the eventual settlement value if all the claims were to settle with damages.