Hospitals pay out £36m in compensation

May 12 2008 by Ben Guy, The Journal

COMPENSATION cases against hospitals in the North resulted in a total payout of almost £36m last year.

Figures show that hospitals in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham, Teesside, Cumbria and North Yorkshire paid out a total of £35,660,422, a figure which included £8,535,167 in legal fees.

Most of the money paid out was for medical negligence cases, but it also includes a range of other compensation claims, including those brought by staff.

The claims are handled by the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA), a body set up in 1995 to try to speed up claims and reduce costs by settling cases out of court.

Martin Callanan, Conservative MEP for the North East, called for a reform of the system to stop such large amounts of cash being spent on legal fees. He said: “The system needs urgent reform to ensure appropriate reasonable compensation goes to patients rather that fat-cat lawyers.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “The NHS sees one million people every 36 hours and the vast majority of patients receive safe and effective care. But mistakes do happen. That is the reality of any modern, increasingly complex, health service. The majority of these incidents are minor and have no lasting effect on patients.

“Regrettably some are more serious. We must investigate and learn from all of them so that we can make systems safer and more reliable.”