Repeat medical errors fuel NHS legal bill
Errors in maternity care that landed the NHS with a £3.1bn legal bill over 10 years are still being repeated, a new report has warned.
The study by the NHS Litigation Authority found there were 5,087 maternity claims between 2000 and 2010. It was the most costly type of litigation managed by NHSLA.
With increasing future care costs, the size of awards is only set to increase, the authority concluded.
The three most frequent categories of claim related to management of labour (14%), caesarean section (13%) and cerebral palsy (11%).
There were a total of 83 maternity claims where the main allegation involved a drug error, totalling around £9m.
The report recommended that risk management be improved at all levels, with NHS organisations regularly reviewing claims, complaints and incidents reports to look for patterns or error.
It added: ‘Recommendations for improving safety in maternity care, such as compulsory attendance at regular training sessions, especially for cardiotocography (CTG) interpretation, good communication between midwives, doctors and women, up-to-date guidelines for managing routine care and protocols to guide staff dealing with emergencies remain as relevant now as at any time in the past.’
For all settled maternity claims, the average time from the incident date to the date when the claim was resolved by the NHSLA was 4.32 years.
For claims with damages above £1m, the average time to resolution was 8.57 years, reflecting the more complex nature of the cases.
Chief executive of the NHS Confederation Mike Farrar said: 'This is an important and helpful report. We are fortunate in this country that maternity care is relatively safe but to keep it that way the NHS has got to keep learning and improving.
'We must in particular learn from the occasions where things have gone very badly wrong. You cannot turn back the clock on a tragedy but you can do everything possible to prevent recurrence by focusing relentlessly on minimising risks.'
Comments
When will the NHS start seriously tackling negligent doctors?
It’s quite remarkable isn’t it – though some hospitals have great standards, others seem to persist in making the same series of errors again and again and again. And yet the government, and the NHS, usually blame the compensation culture and the legal profession – medical negligence solicitors are not making the matter errors – a small number of negligent doctors are, and the sooner the NHS comes clean and start actually tackling these persistent offenders, the better.
Funny how the NHSLA didn't
Funny how the NHSLA didn't mention any of this failure to learn from previous failures generating claims when bleating about the costs of litigation to Jackson LJ.
All Clin neg lawyers see the same old failings time and again leading to severe neurological injuries. Of course these are expensive claims for the NHS, but the real cost is to the injured child and his or her family.
If the NHSLA want to reduce these claims then I'd start by insisting that all CNST members:
1. Have maternity units with consultants on the ward 24 hours a day (not on call, actually there)
2. Have all clinicians regularly tested, at least annually, on their ability to interpret CTG traces and
3. have all clinicians attend regular training on recognising complications/delay in the second stage of labour
I'm sure that trusts will say that they can't because it costs too much, but that's the short sighted thinking that leads to so many disastrous outcomes.
NHS errors
As a lawyer specialising in Court of Protection work derived from acquired brain injury and above all from birth mismanagement, I cannot stress enough that the true cost of these errors is a life sentence for the brain injured child and his family and carers. I work with the clients year or year and see and understand the overwhelming trauma for all concerned. The settlements are no recompense for ruined lives but do at least allow the victim to have the best possible quality of life in all the circumstances. When I read of the NHSLA and its sidekicks whingeing about the "claims culture", I wish they could just for a week or two enter into the reality of the victims' lives.
And yes, again and again the same errors occur. No senior staff on duty, midwives supervising several births at once and no consultants on site. Surely it would be far cheaper to fix the repeated errors, never mind far more humane?