£2.8m paid out in damages for mistakes at Morecambe Bay hospitals last year

Someone can bring a claim against an NHS trust if it is believed they, or a family member, suffered harm or died due to negligent treatment.

Data from NHS Resolution, which handles such cases on behalf of the NHS, reveals 41 clinical negligence claims against University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust were successful in 2021-22.

A total damages bill of £2.8 million was paid out in relation to these claims over the year.

But last year’s bill fell well short of the year before when £24.6 million was paid out for 46 claims in 2020/21.

Individual hospital trusts do not generally pay their own medical negligence bills. Instead, they pay a fee to be part of risk-pooling schemes run by its dispute-handling body NHS Resolution, which then settles claims on their behalf. Providers with more and higher-value claims have to pay higher fees.

NHS Resolution paid out £2.4 billion in damages and legal costs for clinical negligence claims across England in 2021/22, a 9% rise from the year before. More than a third (38%) of these payments related to maternity claims.

It cost the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust £12.6m to be a member of NHS Resolution's Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts in 2021/22 – although the payout last year totalled less than 25% of this.

NHS Resolution chief executive Helen Vernon said: “We will be accelerating our work with others working in healthcare safety to improve outcomes for patients, with a particular focus on maternity.”

Lisa Jordan, head of medical negligence at one of the UK’s largest law firms, Irwin Mitchell, said every year they represented many patients whose lives had been impacted by unnecessary medical mistakes.

She said: “All of these patients would rather the negligence had never happened and the settlements are not lottery wins, they pay for vital rehabilitation and support to help them get their lives back on track. In the case of birth injuries, it pays for a lifetime of specialist care for people left severely disabled.

“Each case is a chance to learn lessons to prevent the same things happening time and again.”