NHS’ £1.2 Billion Medical Negligence Bill
If you’ve been considering making medical negligence claims against any Manchester hospitals , then it’s important to know you’re not alone. The Telegraph newspaper have recently unveiled a report into the costs of the NHS and found that £1.2 billion a year is spent on settling medical negligence cases.
This is broken down into £840 million a year on paying out damages to patients, £259 million in legal costs to claimant's lawyers and £92 million to their own lawyers. However, this falls far short of the amount the NHS had set aside - a staggering £22.7 billion, nearly a fifth of its entire budget - for 2013 and 2014 to deal with medical negligence cases.
While the media regularly reports how cuts to the Health Service’s budgets is stretching their ability to properly take care of patients, it’s key to remember that claiming compensation is not what is costing the NHS money – regrettably it’s the negligent medical treatment in the first place that is the cause. What the NHS also fail to admit are that the sums paid to claimant's lawyers also include ever increasing court fees and experts' fees which would be significantly less if those representing the NHS took a more realistic approach to genuine claims and agreed to settle them at an early stage.
According to the NHS Litigation Authority’s figures, around 43 per cent of cases of medical negligence are eventually settled with damages awarded to the claimants. Claims that are initially rejected by the NHS may result in court proceedings. One such high profile example occurred this year, when a mother of a son born with cerebral palsy, who claimed to have been failed by doctors in not advising her to have a caesarean section, was eventually awarded £5.25 million in damages by the Supreme Court. The claim had been refused by the NHS .
This is broken down into £840 million a year on paying out damages to patients, £259 million in legal costs to claimant's lawyers and £92 million to their own lawyers. However, this falls far short of the amount the NHS had set aside - a staggering £22.7 billion, nearly a fifth of its entire budget - for 2013 and 2014 to deal with medical negligence cases.
While the media regularly reports how cuts to the Health Service’s budgets is stretching their ability to properly take care of patients, it’s key to remember that claiming compensation is not what is costing the NHS money – regrettably it’s the negligent medical treatment in the first place that is the cause. What the NHS also fail to admit are that the sums paid to claimant's lawyers also include ever increasing court fees and experts' fees which would be significantly less if those representing the NHS took a more realistic approach to genuine claims and agreed to settle them at an early stage.
According to the NHS Litigation Authority’s figures, around 43 per cent of cases of medical negligence are eventually settled with damages awarded to the claimants. Claims that are initially rejected by the NHS may result in court proceedings. One such high profile example occurred this year, when a mother of a son born with cerebral palsy, who claimed to have been failed by doctors in not advising her to have a caesarean section, was eventually awarded £5.25 million in damages by the Supreme Court. The claim had been refused by the NHS .