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Found 141 results
  1. News Article
    The NHS could face a record compensation bill of more than £60m from civil claims lodged by the families of Lucy Letby’s victims, experts have said. Parents whose babies have disabilities caused by Letby’s attacks at the Countess of Chester hospital could each expect to receive a payout of more than £10m to fund their future care. Compensation paid by the NHS to parents whose babies died or were left with disabilities as a result of care at Shrewsbury hospital in Britain’s largest maternity scandal reportedly amounted to almost £50m. In a separate case, the health service had to pay £37m to a boy who was left brain damaged at birth. Stephen Jones, the head of Leigh Day’s medical negligence team in Manchester, said the trust could argue that by committing the offences, Letby breached the employer-employee relationship to an extent such that it was not responsible for her. But he added: “I think there would be outrage that the trust wouldn’t accept responsibility for babies in their care.” He said compensation could run into eight figures for a family whose baby was severely injured and had a long life expectancy. Emma Wray, a partner in Hodge Jones & Allen’s medical negligence department, suggested the NHS could set up a scheme for victims, as it has done with other scandals, to make claiming compensation easier. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 August 2023
  2. Content Article
    NHS Resolution has launched its first eLearning module that focuses on learning from the significant avoidable harm that can occur during antenatal and postnatal care and is seen in the cases notified to its Early Notification Scheme. This free resource is designed to support clinicians working in maternity services. The module uses three illustrative case stories to immerse learners into the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care provided to mothers and the neonatal care provided to their babies. It aims to deepen learners' understanding of NHS Resolution’s role within the healthcare system, develop their understanding of the law of negligence as applied to clinical claims and explore how clinical decisions and actions can lead to avoidable harm. The module takes approximately two-and-a-half hours to complete and can be used as evidence of CPD hours undertaken for revalidation.
  3. News Article
    30,000 people believe they are victims of negligence each week in the UK, new research carried out by YouGov for Injury Awareness Week (26-30 June) has found. Participants were asked if they have suffered an injury or illness in the last year which was caused because of negligence, for example by another road user, an employer, a colleague, or a medic. “We need to shine a light on the impact these injuries can have on people who were doing nothing more than living their lives before they fell victim to the recklessness or carelessness of others,” said Mike Benner, chief executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) which commissioned the Injury Awareness Week study. “Often these injures are severe, some are life-changing, and some are life-ending,” he said. “The fact that the harm has been caused by negligence is significant, because negligence could and should be avoided,” said Mr Benner. “An accident is simply an incident which no-one could have reasonably foreseen. Negligence is doing something, or failing to do something, that could cause injury to others. Employers have a duty to make sure we return home from a day’s work unscathed, for example, and drivers need to take care to not harm fellow road users. “If someone were to take one thing away from this Injury Awareness Week, it’s the knowledge that any one of us could be among the 30,000 injured needlessly in a week. Avoidable injuries are an issue we should all be concerned about,” he said. Read full story Source: APIL, 22 June 2023
  4. News Article
    Litigation costs for specialties including intensive care, oncology and emergency medicine have rocketed by up to five times as much as they were before the pandemic, internal data obtained by HSJ reveals. HSJ's data reveal costs for claims relating to intensive care, oncology, neurology, ambulances, ophthalmology and emergency care have increased – both for damages and legal costs – by significantly more than average. The steepest cost rise was in intensive care, which saw the bill increase fivefold from £4.3m in 2019-20 to £23.7m in 2021-22. Other specialisms which reported higher than average percentage increases were oncology, a 159% increase from £15m to £38.9m, and neurology, a 95% uplift from £18.4m to £36m. Key findings from these reports included missed or delayed diagnosis, missing signs of deterioration, failure to recognise the significance of patients re-attending accident and emergency multiple times with the same problem, and communication issues. Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “I’m extremely worried about the amount of money we’re spending on litigation… There’s a good reason we must not normalise an abnormal situation and we need to invest in an emergency care system which avoids these huge costs.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 June 2023
  5. Content Article
    Failure to be aware of and to follow clinical guidelines and protocols could constitute clinical negligence, but not in all cases, and much will depend on the facts of each case. John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, discusses aspects of the law on clinical guidelines and other care management tools.
  6. Content Article
    In this blog, Paul Whiteing, Chief Executive of Action Against Medical Accidents (AvMA), highlights how proposed changes to the UK legal system will affect people who have been harmed by healthcare and their families' access to justice. He describes the negative impact of legislation that would make claims less than £100,000 subject to a fixed cost regime. Paul writes, "The consequence of a fixed cost regime is that where the patient wins their case against the healthcare provider, the costs awarded will be capped at the rates set by Parliament." Related reading Read our Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Paul.
  7. News Article
    More than three quarters of all multimillion-pound NHS medical negligence payouts are the consequences of failures in maternity care, new figures show. In total, 364 patients or families received the highest-value compensation payments of at least £3.5 million after suing the NHS last year. Of those, 279 (77%) were maternity-related damages, according to figures from NHS Resolution. The large payouts have been offered to parents whose babies were stillborn or suffered avoidable life-changing disabilities or brain injuries. Maternity makes up the bulk of NHS compensation payments. There were more than 10,000 clinical negligence claims brought against the NHS in 2021-22, with a total value of more than £6 billion. Maternity accounted for 62% of payments, or £3.74 billion. When taking into account all cost of harm, including future periodic payments and legal costs, the cost of compensating mothers and their families rises to £8.2 billion a year. Analysis by The Times Health Commission found that this is more than twice the £3 billion spent by the NHS annually on maternity and neonatal services. Maternity claims have increased during the past decade amid a string of high-profile scandals and a shortage of midwives. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 12 June 2023
  8. Content Article
    This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them.  Paul talks to us about how AvMA helps people who have suffered direct or indirect medical harm and to help them to seek justice, why upcoming changes to the legal system could restrict access to clinical negligence claims and the importance of compassionate engagement in improving harmed patients’ experiences of the healthcare system.
  9. Content Article
    John Tingle and Amanda Cattini discuss some recent reports on patient safety and clinical negligence, considering the need for policy makers to look forward as well as to react to crises
  10. Content Article
    In a blog for the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive Helen Hughes highlights both the human and financial costs associated with the persistence of avoidable harm in healthcare. She outlines how Finance directors should play a key role in improving patient safety and argues that they have an essential corporate leadership role to ensure healthcare is both effective and safe.
  11. News Article
    The amount of government money spent on medical negligence cases and legal fees in Northern Ireland doubled within a year. Just over £20m was paid out during 2020-21 but that increased to more than £40m in the 2021-22 financial year. Last year, £30.7m was paid out in damages, while £5.9m went on plaintiff costs and £3.7m in defence costs. The increase in cost is being attributed to the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, 3,987 clinical negligence cases were open. Almost half (1,813) of all cases open in 2021-22 related to four specialties: Obstetrics - 564 Accident and emergency - 456 Neurology - 407 General surgery - 386 There has been a stark increase in the number of cases relating to neurology in the past five years from 23 in 2017-18 to 407 in 2021-22. Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 April 2023
  12. Content Article
    NHS Resolution received 2,600 claims for needlestick injuries for incidents occurring between 2012 – 2022. Needlestick injuries can be costly to investigate and increase the risk blood-borne infections. Fortunately, the harm and cost of most needlestick injuries are largely avoidable. NHS Resolution has created two new resources to share the learning from these claims and help organisations identify how to prevent future injuries.
  13. Event
    Amy Walsh, an experienced IV nurse, will address the clinical negligence issues surrounding extravasation including: incidence and aetiology, presentation and recognition, management, treatment and prognosis of this iatrogenic injury. Register
  14. News Article
    Dilshad Sultana was 36 weeks pregnant with her second child in 2019 when she experienced stomach pain and noticed her baby was moving less. Mrs Sultana, from Sutton Coldfield, said she had been due to have a Caesarean section on 8 July but on 20 June she started to feel pain in her abdomen and lower back. She said she was confused but that it did not feel like a contraction and called hospital staff at about 17:00 to say it felt like her baby was moving less. After following advice to rest and take pain relief, she attended hospital at about 22:30 and staff started monitoring Shanto's heart rate. It was not until almost three hours later that Shanto was delivered by emergency C-Section. Shanto suffered severe brain damage and would spent the next 22 days in intensive care, suffering seizures and multiple brain haemorrhages. Shanto now requires around-the-clock care and Mrs Sultana enlisted lawyers to pursue a care of medical negligence against the trust. Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust has admitted liability and made a voluntary interim payment allowing the family to move to a new home specifically adapted to meet Shanto's extensive care, therapy and equipment needs. Fiona Reynolds, the chief medical officer, said: "We'd like to offer our heartfelt apologies again to the family. "It's clear the standard of care we offered to them fell below those required and expected. For this, we are truly sorry." Now, Mrs Sultana is campaigning for change - she wants to see mothers listened to in maternity care and more attention paid to monitoring babies' heart rates. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 March 2023
  15. News Article
    A hospital trust has been told to pay almost a quarter of a million pounds after pleading guilty to failing to provide safe care to a patient with advanced dementia who fatally injured himself. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) brought the prosecution against University Hospitals of Derby and Burton Foundation Trust after an incident in July 2019, when a patient died after absconding from the hospital. Peter Mullis – who had advanced dementia – was admitted to Queen’s Hospital Burton emergency department and absconded twice. When he tried to a third time, he was followed by trust staff. The CQC described how, despite being followed, Mr Mullis was able to climb over a barrier, fall down a grass bank and hit his head on concrete at the bottom. He was airlifted to the local trauma centre, but died of multiple traumatic injuries. The CQC said UHDB did not take “reasonable steps” to ensure safe care was provided and that failure exposed Mr Mullis to “significant risk of avoidable harm”.
  16. News Article
    A woman was denied the chance to have children with her husband after a contraceptive coil was accidentally left in place for 29 years. Jayne Huddleston, from Crewe, had eight rounds of fertility treatment she did not need because the correct checks were not carried out by her doctor. She said the mistake happened in 1990. "The GP said it couldn't be seen, so I was sent for a scan and the scan didn't pick anything up, the GP recommended another coil was fitted," she told the BBC. She was told the coil she had fitted around a year earlier had probably fallen out. When she and her husband, David, then decided they wanted to have a child, the second coil was removed, but the first coil, which had gone undetected, remained inside her. They tried for years to have a baby, with no success, including IVF treatment which cost them thousands of pounds. The mistake was only discovered when she went for an X-ray in 2019 after complaining of back pain and the original coil was revealed. Mr and Mrs Huddleston were awarded a six-figure out of court settlement after taking their case to Irwin Mitchell solicitors. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 March 2023
  17. Content Article
    In this article, John Tingle, Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham Law School, discusses recent developments in patient safety in the context of possible reform of the clinical negligence system in the UK.
  18. News Article
    A long-running public inquiry into what has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS will hear its final evidence on Friday. It is thought tens of thousands were infected with HIV and hepatitis between 1970 and 1991 after being given a contaminated drug or blood transfusion. The inquiry, which started in 2018, has reviewed thousands of documents and heard testimony from 370 witnesses. A total of 1,250 people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders contracted HIV after being given a protein made from blood plasma known as Factor VIII. About half of that group later died of an Aids-related illness. Researchers found that 380 of those infected with HIV - about one in three - were children, including some very young toddlers. One of the key questions the inquiry will now have to answer is whether more could and should have been done to prevent those infections and deaths. Hundreds of victims of the scandal have received annual support payments but - before this inquiry - no formal compensation had ever been awarded for loss of earnings, care costs and other lifetime losses Further recommendations on compensation are expected when the inquiry publishes its final report, which is likely to be around the middle of the year. Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 February 2023
  19. News Article
    An acute trust has been fined a record sum by the Care Quality Commission for failing to provide safe maternity care, which resulted in the death of a baby after 23 minutes. Nottingham University Hospitals must pay a fine of £800,000 within two years. It is only the second time the regulator has brought a case against a NHS maternity service, and the highest fine ever given for failings of this nature. The trust pleaded guilty earlier this week to two charges of failing to provide safe care and treatment to Sarah Andrews and her baby daughter Wynter Andrews at Queen’s Medical Centre in 2019, a short time after her birth by Caesarean section. This guilty plea saw the fine reduced from £1.2m. An inquest in 2020 found the death was a “clear and obvious case of neglect”. It was also found there was “an unsafe culture prevailing within maternity services”, including a “failure to listen and respond to staff safety concerns”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 January 2023
  20. News Article
    The health trust behind the worst maternity scandal in NHS history has accepted responsibility for a boy's brain injury. Adam Cheshire, 11, contracted a Group B Strep (GBS) infection following his birth at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in 2011. A High Court judge approved a pay out from Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH) to provide special care for the rest of his life. His case was examined as part of senior midwife Donna Ockendon's investigation into SaTH which found catastrophic failures might have led to the deaths and life-changing injuries of hundreds of babies, as well as the deaths of nine mothers. Adam, from Newport, Shropshire, was born nearly 35 hours after his mother's waters broke in the afternoon of 24 March 2011. In the hours that followed, he began to show signs of early onset GBS including struggling to feed, crying and grunting. After weeks in intensive care, he was finally diagnosed with the infection and meningitis. Adam is living with multiple conditions including hearing and visual impairments, autism, severe learning difficulties and behavioural problems so he relies on others to care for him. His mum, the Reverend Charlotte Cheshire, said she had expressed concerns about bright green discharge at one of her last antenatal appointments but no action was taken. "From that point I just had a mother's instinct something wasn't right but I was reassured by the midwives so many times that everything was OK," the 45-year-old said. Mrs Cheshire added: "While Adam is adorable and I am so thankful to have him in my life, it's difficult not to think how things could have turned out differently for him if he'd received the care he should have. "Adam will never live an independent life and will need lifelong care. While I'm devoted to him, I'm now raising a severely disabled son, which is extremely challenging and has changed the path of both our lives forever". Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 January 2023
  21. Content Article
    In this opinion piece, Kath Sansom, founder of campaign group Sling the Mesh, looks at flaws in the Government’s approach to women harmed by pelvic mesh surgery receiving financial redress. She highlights the unsuccessful case of Sarah*, who attempted to bring a clinical negligence case after suffering multiple complications as a result of pelvic mesh, to demonstrate that the national Redress Agency recommended by the Cumberlege Review is still very necessary.
  22. Content Article
    A recently published report highlights the shortcomings in care provided by the NHS. Peter Walsh, Joanne Hughes and James Titcombe emphasise how millions could be saved if people were empowered early on to have their needs met without the need to turn to litigation
  23. Content Article
    In this opinion piece for the Daily Mail, journalist Tom Utley recounts his recent experience of a seven hour wait at A&E after receiving abnormal blood test results from his GP. He argues that fear of litigation is causing GPs to refer patients on to A&E unecessarily, contributing to the overcrowding happening at emergency departments. He also highlights inefficiencies in the system and states that lack of staff capacity to tell him he didn't require any treatment meant he stayed an additional hour and a half in the waiting room.
  24. News Article
    Attending physicians and advanced practice clinicians in US emergency departments are more concerned about medical errors resulting in patient harm than in malpractice litigation, according to a study published JAMA Network Open. The findings are based on an online survey of 1,222 ED clinicians across acute care hospitals in Massachusetts from January to September 2020. Respondents used a Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) to indicate their degree of agreement with statements on how fearful they are of making a mistake that leads to a patient harm in their day-to-day practice, and how fearful they are of an error that results in being sued. The mean score was greater for fear of harm (4.40) than fear of being sued (3.40), the findings showed. Researchers said the mean scores for both fear of harm and fear of suit were similar regardless of whether the survey was completed before or after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although previous studies have associated clinicians' fear of legal concerns with "excessive healthcare use through defensive medicine," the role fear of patient harm may play in clinical decision-making is less documented, researchers said. "Although the study did not delineate the association between this concern and potential overuse of testing, it suggested that fear of harm should be considered with, and may be more consequential, than fear of suit in medical decision-making," researchers said. Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 21 November 2022
  25. News Article
    Families whose loved ones’ bodies were sexually abused in a hospital mortuary have yet to receive any compensation, because the Department of Health and Social Care has not signed off a proposed framework. A family member involved in the case claimed the delay was due to a “chaotic, splenetic mess of a government… [which] can’t get an arse on a seat long enough to approve it”. Former hospital maintenance supervisor David Fuller is serving life sentences for the murder of two women, committed two decades before he went on to commit sexual offences against 101 dead women and girls in hospital mortuaries in Kent. He was given a total of 12 years, to run concurrently, for 51 sex offences when he was sentenced last December but recently pleaded guilty to 16 additional charges involving 23 bodies and will be sentenced for these next month. But the families of the women and girls involved have waited more than a year to receive any compensation for the emotional distress his actions caused. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 November 2022
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