Unsafe maternity care has cost the NHS £8.2bn in 15 years

Negligent maternity care in the NHS has cost taxpayers an “eye-watering” £8.2bn over the past 15 years, The Independent reveals.

Ministers face calls to urgently increase spending to ensure maternity units are safe for women and babies by providing adequate staffing levels, training and equipment.

New data, obtained by The Independent from NHS Resolution, which handles clinical negligence costs for the service, reveals that total payments made following settled cases and legal costs rose from £271m in 2006-07 to an estimated £920m in 2020-21.

The number of maternity claims being made by families has almost doubled in the past decade, rising from 391 in 2009-10 to 765 in 2019-20.

Recent maternity scandals at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, East Kent Hospitals University Trust and at hospitals in Nottingham have all had common themes around poor culture, a lack of honesty and not enough staff or equipment.

The Department of Health and Social Care is exploring how it can make changes to the UK clinical negligence system to reduce the costs to the taxpayer. Health minister Nadine Dorries told MPs on the Commons health committee in February that the reforms would look “across the NHS… not just maternity, at how issues of no-blame, no-fault compensation and clinical negligence are treated”.

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Source: The Independent, 20 September 2021