NHS spends £14.7bn a year treating patients in England hurt by care mistakes, says report

The NHS is forced to spend a “staggering” £14.7bn a year treating people who have been harmed by mistakes made during their care, a report reveals.

And a stark north/south divide on patient safety has opened up across England, with double the amount of death and disability caused by medical negligence in the north-east than in London.

The report, by experts at Imperial College London, found that the safety of the care patients receive had declined over the past two years.

The authors include Prof Lord Ara Darzi, the surgeon and former health minister who produced a major NHS report for the Labour government, which highlighted avoidable patient deaths.

Darzi said there had been “alarming declines” in 12 key metrics of patient safety in England since 2022. They include maternity care, in which there are growing rates of stillbirth, babies dying during or soon after they are born and also women dying while giving birth.

“Our analysis highlights a troubling increase in neonatal and maternal deaths, with Black women disproportionately affected,” said Darzi, the co-director of Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, which drew up the report.

He urged ministers and NHS bosses to take “immediate action” to improve maternity care. The Royal College of Midwives said staff shortages, including of specialist midwives, were a key reason for the recent deterioration in women’s experiences during pregnancy, labour and afterwards – a decline which reviews by other organisations have also identified.

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Source: The Guardian, 12 December 2024