NHS forced to pay out £1.2billion in compensation to 7,000 patients after botched care
In 2016/17 deaths made up £55 million of claims – up £13million from 2015/16
NHS bosses were forced to pay out a whopping £1.23billion in damages after botched medical care last year.
Patients had more than 7,000 cases settled with the highest compensation paid out for brain damage at £380million.
Brain damage claims were up by £80million on the previous year while total claims had shot up more than 16 per cent from 5,968.
Delays to treatment and diagnosis by staff made up a fifth of all claims with £397million forked out by the NHS.
A Freedom of Information request by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) to NHS resolution showed the second highest injury payout was for cerebral palsy at £350million.
In 2015 the High Court ruled mum Suzanne Adams should be paid at least £14.6million for birth injuries after her son James, then 12, had been born with brain damage and developed cerebral palsy.
She had been admitted to Lincoln County Hospital in 2002 but doctors failed to carry out a Caesarean section or monitor her properly during labour.
The pay-out was then thought to be the largest ever awarded in court for a birth injury.
In 2016/17 deaths also made up £55 million of claims - up £13million from 2015/16.
While in 2015/16 there were 5,968 claims with another £1.23billion paid out.
And in the previous year 2014/15 the NHS settled 5,937 patient claims at a cost of £1.14billion.
Last year in 2016/17 the claim number peaked at 7,119 claims with another £1.23billion paid in compensation.
Brett Dixon, president APIL, said: “Human suffering lies beneath these figures and it is the injured patients who really pay the price for the NHS’s negligence.
"People are losing their children, their limbs, their sight, and their lives.
"There is no expectation on the NHS to be infallible. Mistakes happen. But for the health service to fail to treat someone at all is as fundamental a failure as it gets.
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“The process of a compensation claim could be made more efficient in some cases and save the NHS money but it must overhaul its defensive and obstructive approach toward injured patients."
But health service leaders have recently warned the current level of pay-outs is diverting funds from urgent medical care.
They said the estimated total liabilities, which is the cost if all current claims are successful, stands at £65bn, up from £29bn in 2014-15.
Changes to rules last year meant one compensation claim for a ten-year-old girl left with cerebral palsy almost tripled from £3.8million to £9.3million to cover future care.
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