NHS: Negligence
(asked on 8th December 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the cost to the NHS in (1) legal fees, and (2) negligence costs, in each of the last two years for which figures are available.
The following table shows total payments for the financial years 2018/19 and 2019/20 for all of NHS Resolution’s clinical and non-clinical negligence schemes.
| 2019/20 | 2018/19 |
Clinical spend | £ million | £ million |
Damages paid to claimants | 1,683.2 | 1,778.0 |
Claimant legal costs | 497.5 | 442.3 |
NHS legal costs | 143.5 | 139.6 |
Total | 2,324.3 | 2,359.9 |
Non-clinical spend | £ million | £ million |
Damages paid to claimants | 30.0 | 37.4 |
Claimant legal costs | 18.1 | 17.8 |
NHS legal costs | 7.4 | 6.6 |
Total Non-Clinical | 55.5 | 61.8 |
Total of all spend | 2,379.7 | 2,421.7 |