The defendant arm of the NHS believes it has slowed the rise in legal costs through greater collaboration with claimant lawyers.

NHS Resolution said the rises in legal costs (4.2% for claimant costs and 1.4% for defence costs) were lower in comparison to previous years, which could be put down to greater use of dispute resolution to avoid formal processes. In total, the authority paid £491m in claimant costs and £159m in defence costs during the year ended 31 March 2023.

Damages payments increased by 12.2% across clinical schemes to almost £2bn. One factor contributing to the increase was the volume of periodical payment cases settled, which are usually of higher value. NHSR reported a 37.7% increase in the volume settled as PPOs this year (157 in 2022/23 compared to 114 in 2021/22).

The total number of new clinical negligence claims and reported incidents across primary and secondary care was 13,511 – a 12% decrease on last year (which was itself the highest level in the last 10 years).

A total of 13,499 claims were settled across all clinical negligence schemes in 2022/23 compared to 13,070 in 2021/22.

In the most recent year, 49% (6,611) settled without damages, which compares to 48.2% (6,297) in 2021/22.

The potential cost to the NHS of clinical negligence claims has fallen significantly in the last year. Provision for claims is now £70bn compared with £128.5bn a year ago – a fall of almost 46%.

Maternity claims amounted to £45bn (65%) of the 2022/23 clinical negligence provision, compared to £90bn (70%) in 2021/22, with the value and percentage share being affected by the change in discount rates.

But NHSR missed its targets for time to resolve case from the claims decision to agreement of damages. The organisation said this was because of delays which arose during the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic and have continued to have an impact in both 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years.

Claims have taken longer to resolve for multiple reasons, including issues in the justice system and the impact of the challenges facing the NHS, such as availability of clinicians.

The report added: ‘The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has, however, contributed to improvements in how we manage claims. In part, our Covid-19 Clinical Negligence Protocol1 has improved co-operation between all parties, supporting the resolution of more claims pre-action.

'The protocol outlines a best practice approach to claims-handling agreed between the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers (SCIL), the patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) and ourselves, and encourages a collaborative relationship between lawyers acting for patients and defendant organisations as well as removing barriers to resolution such as limitation periods. Greater levels of collaboration have created a fertile environment for expansion of our dispute resolution offering.’

 

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