Vernon: Building on success
Claimant costs bills for clinical negligence claims valued up to £25,000 now exceed damages for the first time, according to NHS data.
Average costs for these types of claim have slowly risen over the past decade, from £19,776 to £26,095 in the 12 months to 31 March 2024, 7% higher than the previous year and 32% since 2014-15.
The annual report of NHS Resolution (NHSR) said the NHS paid out a total of £545m in claimant legal costs in 2023-24, an 11% increase, with its own costs of £169m rising by 6.4%.
The new government has yet to confirm whether it will retain the Conservatives’ plan to introduce fixed recoverable costs for clinical negligence claims worth between £1,501 and £25,000 that settle pre-issue.
We reported last week that the target implementation date of October could well be missed anyway.
For cases where damages were between £25,000 to £100,000, the average claimant legal costs were £54,978, a 5% increase in a year.
The figure has fluctuated over the past decade, reaching a high of £60,720 in 2016-17 and a low of £48,371 in the pandemic year of 2020-21.
NHSR paid out £2.1bn in damages, a 6% rise on the year, meaning that it shelled out a pound in costs for every three pounds in damages.
The report said there were “some welcome positive signs such as a further reduction in damages inflation which has reduced the overall provision for clinical negligence”. Costs had risen to more claims valued between £250,000 and £4.75m, it added.
There was a 2% increase in new clinical negligence claims in 2023-24 to 13,784, while NHSR resolved 13,382 claims, 52% with a payment of damages.
A record 81% concluded without litigation, a figure that has risen significantly in recent years, from 66% eight years ago.
“We recognise that this upward trend cannot continue indefinitely but… will always continue to promote dispute resolution over litigation,” the report said.
Only 50 claims reached trial, with 17 resulting in an award of damages, a similar proportion as the previous year.
Since late 2016, NHSR has had a formal mediations scheme in place, for both substantive claims and costs disputes and mediated 2,031 claims in that time, including 195 claims in 2023-24, 79% successfully.
NHSR chief executive Helen Vernon said: “NHS Resolution has built on the success in resolving clinical claims for compensation against the NHS in England without exposing patients, families and healthcare staff to distressing and costly court proceedings.
“Last year, 81% of clinical claims were resolved without litigation, reflecting our ambition to minimise the use of formal legal action in settling claims. This has been achieved by strengthening our relationships with our NHS partners and the legal market.
“Throughout our work, our focus has been to deliver an efficient and effective service that provides the best possible value for public funds, and this has driven many of the programmes to invest in our people and our systems.”
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