Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Negligence claim'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 141 results
  1. News Article
    Three trusts have lost out on more than £1m in rebate from the maternity clinical negligence scheme (CNST) after they ‘mis-declared’ that they were compliant with safety requirements. University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Morecambe Bay FT and Doncaster and Bassetlaw FT have all received a small amount of funding to implement their action plans but a much larger rebate on the NHS Resolution maternity section of the clinical negligence scheme for trusts has been withheld. This amounted to a loss of close to half a million pounds for Doncaster and Bassetlaw and is likely to be more for the other two trusts, which had made bigger contributions to the maternity section of the CNST. Western Sussex had mis-declared its compliance on five safety actions, BSUH on seven, Doncaster and Bassetlaw on five and UHMB on seven. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 26 May 2022
  2. News Article
    More than 200 women were harmed when a rogue surgeon carried out operations on them unnecessarily, an NHS inquiry has found. Some of the women were left with life-changing physical problems or unable to work, while many also suffered trauma and serious psychological harm as a result. Overall, 203 women on whom Anthony Dixon performed procedures between 2007 and 2017 came to harm, according to a review by the North Bristol NHS trust (NBT). Dixon, who for years was Britain’s most influential pelvic surgeon, worked for both the trust and the private Spire hospital in the city. In 2017, NBT launched a review of Dixon’s performance and suspended him after dozens of women he had performed procedures on complained that they had experienced appalling consequences, including unmanageable pain and incontinence. The Guardian revealed in late 2017 that 100 women were suing him for medical negligence. Some cases have since been settled, but dozens are ongoing. NBT sacked Dixon in 2019 and he is currently banned from practising in the UK. During the review, 378 women were recalled and asked to set out their dealings with Dixon. All had undergone a procedure called laparoscopic ventral mesh rectopexy (LVMR), in which plastic mesh is inserted to repair weakened tissue in the pelvic floor. In papers presented to NBT’s board on Thursday, board members were told that the inquiry had concluded. “The trust has notified 203 NHS patients that, although their LVMR operation was carried out satisfactorily, they should have been offered alternative treatments before proceeding to surgery. We have defined these patients as suffering ‘harm’ as a result,” it said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 May 2022
  3. News Article
    Parents whose children have mysteriously fallen ill with hepatitis and received a delayed diagnosis could be entitled to negligence claims, lawyers believe. Officials are no closer to explaining a recent and unusual outbreak in cases of liver inflammation recorded among young children across the UK. To date, a total of 163 children have been diagnosed. Eleven of these have received liver transplants, while 13 are currently in hospital. Globally in recent months, 300 children have been struck down by the illness, which has no clear cause. Because the UK cases have been identified retrospectively, there is potential that doctors and medics may have “missed signs” which would have led to earlier hepatitis diagnoses and treatment, lawyers say. “There are a significant number of these diagnoses which are actually retrospective,” said Jonathan Peacock, a partner at VWV specialising in clinical negligence. “The obvious issue there from a negligence point of view is if you have missed signs, which ought to have led you to a diagnosis of hepatitis earlier, as a result of which it’s gone untreated and the outcome is worse, then potentially you’re negligent. “There’s two stages: was the care diagnosis, treatment, intervention, was that of a reasonable standard? If the answer is no – there was clearly a negligent delay, or a breach of duty of care, then the second question that then arises is has the individual been harmed by that delay?” Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 May 2022
  4. News Article
    Hunt’s radical plan to reform compensation for clinical negligence is “completely unacceptable” says the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, which includes some of the kinds of firms that urge people to sue the NHS, soliciting online, in TV ads or posters in waiting rooms. Damages paid by the NHS as a result of medical negligence claims have soared exponentially over the last decade, up from £900m to £2.2bn now. Yet despite horror stories of deaths and life-changing damage in badly run maternity wards, the National Audit Office (NAO) finds no evidence of more injuries, only that the number of claims and sums awarded by courts are shooting up. The NAO found that “the claimant’s legal costs exceeded the damages awarded in 61% of claims settled”. Though the lawyers in the clinical compensation business protest vigorously that they defend patients’ rights, the Hunt committee demolishes any justification for the present system. The report quotes Sir Ian Kennedy QC, the chair of many inquiries and emeritus professor of health law and ethics at University College London, who wrote in 2021 that clinical negligence was an “outdated, arbitrary and scandalously expensive system” with a “stranglehold that lawyers exert over a system that should be putting the interests and needs of patients first”. What injured patients need is an independent authority to conduct a speedy and transparent investigation of what went wrong, with everyone free to speak openly, ending in reasonable compensation and a pledge to prevent anyone else being put at risk by the same error. Peter Walsh, the chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, told the committee that litigation was often “a last-gasp attempt to get a sense of justice and to get to the bottom of what has actually happened after people have experienced denial after denial”. Instead of a system of delays and denials that frustrates grieving families and terrorises doctors as lawyers seek to pin personal blame on someone, the committee proposes a system closer to those used in New Zealand and Scandinavia. An independent administrative body would investigate a patient’s case to see if the harm done was avoidable and if so, to fix fair compensation briskly within six months. The priority would be openness and learning from mistakes to protect future patients. Not needing to find a person to blame makes it easier for patients to get compensation – but the payout would be far lower. Some warn this lower burden of proof would encourage a flood of claims, but New Zealand found a similar system ended up halving the sums paid out. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 May 2022
  5. News Article
    A major reform of the way NHS clinical negligence claims are handled in England is needed, MPs say. The House of Commons' Health and Social Care Committee said the current system was too adversarial, leading to bitter and long legal fights for patients. More than £2bn a year is paid out on claims, but 25% goes to legal fees. An independent body should be set up to adjudicate on cases and the need to prove individual fault should be scrapped, the cross-party group said. Instead, the focus should be whether the system failed, which the MPs believe would create a better culture for learning from mistakes. The committee heard from families who had lost children or whose babies had been left with brain injuries from mistakes made during birth. Parents described how they had to fight for years to get recognition for the harm that had been caused. One woman criticised the "complacent attitude" of the hospital involved, saying they just wanted to put it down to one mistake and carry on as normal. Another woman whose daughter died aged 20 months after errors in her care said she felt lessons had not been learnt despite a settlement in her favour. She said the whole process had left her feeling devastated. The average length of time for these settlements was over 11 years, the committee was told. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 April 2022
  6. News Article
    A hospital has admitted clinical negligence over maternity care failings that led to the potentially avoidable death of a 10-day-old baby, The Independent has learned. Kingsley Olasupo and his twin sister Princess were born on 8 April 2019 at Royal Bolton Hospital. Kingsley died 10 days later following a catalogue of mistakes, which included failing to screen him for sepsis. Kingsley and his sister were born premature at 35 weeks. Three days later he was admitted to the special care unit due to a low temperature and “poor” feeding. Despite being reviewed by two doctors he was not screened for an infection and not given antibiotics. His condition deteriorated and on 12 April he was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and sepsis. Days later scans revealed he had severe brain damage and would not survive. Kingsley’s family said they had been “torn apart” by their son’s death and had pursued the trust to ensure a full independent investigation was carried out and lessons learnt. BFT launched an investigation into Kingsley’s care after Mr Olasupo and Ms Daley raised concerns over their son’s death. According to the trust’s investigation report, seen by The Independent, failings in care included that Kingsley was not screened for sepsis despite several “red flags”. Had this been done he would have been given antibiotics. When midwives first escalated concerns to the neonatal team no physical medical review of Kingsley took place. The investigation also found neonatal staff did not carry out daily reviews, and reviews that were done were incomplete and contained “inaccurate” and “misleading” information. Other failings included: “Ineffective” assessment of Kingsley’s wellbeing on the postnatal ward Poor communication between staff and poor handover processes No consideration was given to the fact Kingsley was not feeding well Inadequate recording of observations. Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 April 2022
  7. News Article
    The reasons behind the most catastrophic blunders in emergency departments have been laid bare in a NHS Resolution report highlighting some of the biggest pay outs for NHS A&E errors. NHS Resolution conducted a deep dive into compensation claims concerning emergency departments in England, including 16 cases which saw more than £1 million handed out after life-changing or deadly errors. The average “high-value claim” was £2,069,029, with many of them related to spinal cord injuries which, left undetected, can have a life-long impact on patients. The report detailed the case of a woman who suffered permanent neurological damage and now has bladder, bowel and sexual dysfunction symptoms, as well as loss of mobility, after a spinal condition was misdiagnosed as sciatica. The report also looked at 86 deaths which resulted in average pay outs of more than £45,000. After reviewing 220 claims between 2014 and 2018, the authors highlighted a number of “common themes”, including: diagnostic errors, including missing signs a patient was deteriorating a failure to recognise the significance of repeat attendance at A&E delays in care problems with communication, including problems with different hospital departments talking to each other. Read full story Source: In Your Area News, 29 March 2022
  8. News Article
    More than 200 women were affected by failures in Ireland’s CervicalCheck screening system. It emerged in 2018 that 221 women and families were not told about misreported smear tests. The Minister for Health said that non-disclosure issues which arose in the cervical check screening controversy will be legislated for to prevent it from happening again. Stephen Donnelly said new legislation will address the negligence issues and ensure that the failure to inform the women of the clinical audit of their screening will “never happen again”. Mr Donnelly was discussing a number of amendments at the committee stage of Ireland's Patient Safety Bill. The new legislation will require the mandatory open disclosure of serious patient safety incidents, and sets out a list of incidents which must be reported to the health watchdog, Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA). Mr Donnelly said that he will introduce an amendment at the report stage of the Bill that will provide for non-disclosure and will deal with issues around delayed diagnosis and delayed screening. Mr Donnelly said: “I’ve had lengthy discussions with the department on this and it doesn’t fit neatly with this Bill because the serious patient safety issues which result in death or serious harm, they are very clear and binary. “Legislating around delayed diagnosis and delayed screening, it is really complex and doesn’t fit neatly in this Bill, however my view is that the non-disclosure that happened in cervical check, even though it doesn’t neatly fit here, should still be legislated for." Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 March 2022
  9. News Article
    More than a dozen families are seeking compensation following "significant failures" at NHS Lothian's hearing service for children. The health board apologised to more than 155 families after an independent investigation found serious problems diagnosing and treating hearing loss. Sophie was born partly deaf and failed repeated hearing tests for years. Her family say no help was offered by the paediatric audiology department at NHS Lothian who kept saying she would be fine. But her parents say she is not. Sophie is now seven. Her speech and language has not developed fully and is sometimes hard to understand. Her confidence has been affected. Her mum Sarah said: "They failed Sophie. You kind of trust what they were doing, you thought maybe she doesn't need hearing aids, maybe she will just catch up and now she's almost eight years old and she's still not caught up and you think 'OK, maybe there were mistakes made then'." An independent investigation by the British Academy of Audiology (BAA), published in December last year, found "significant failures" involving 155 children over nine years at NHS Lothian. Several profoundly deaf children were diagnosed too late for vital implant surgery. The health board has "apologised sincerely" to those affected. The BAA looked at more than 1,000 patient records finding "significant failures" in almost 14% of them. The BAA said it found "no evidence" that national guidelines and protocols on hearing tests for children had been followed or consistently applied "at any point since 2009". Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 March 2022
  10. News Article
    Patient safety will be harmed and victims of medical negligence denied justice because of flaws in the government’s health and care bill, the NHS ombudsman has told the Guardian. Rob Behrens, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, fears he and his staff will not be able to get to the bottom of clinical blunders because under the bill he will be denied potentially vital information collected by the NHS’s Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB). The ombudsman said the legislation would allow the HSIB to “operate behind a curtain of secrecy” and undermine his own investigations into lapses in patient safety and could deny grieving families the full truth about why a loved one died. Behrens has spoken out because he is concerned about government plans for NHS staff involved in an incident to give evidence about mistakes privately in a “safe space” to the HSIB, which cannot be shared with anyone else except coroners. His exclusion from seeing material gathered in that way could force him to take the agency to the high court to access it, he said. “If the ‘safe space’ provisions become law as drafted there is a real risk to patient safety and to justice for those who deserve it. This is a crisis of accountability and scrutiny,” he said. Julia Neuberger, a crossbench peer who chairs University College hospitals NHS trust, has tabled an amendment to the bill in the House of Lords seeking to give the ombudsman access to information obtained via “safe space” processes. Unless ministers rethink the plan “there could be serious consequences for members of the public who use the ombudsman service”, she recently told a Lords debate. “If the ombudsman is unable to investigate robustly all aspects of complaints about the NHS, except with the permission of the high court, patients may find it harder to get access to justice. The NHS may well become less accountable for its system failings,” she said. Peter Walsh, chief executive of patient safety charity Action Against Medical Accidents, backed Behrens. “The so-called safe space is a red herring with serious unintended consequences. There is no evidence staff do not take part in investigations for fear of information being known. It is bullying employers and over-zealous regulators that staff fear. Denying people their right to have the ombudsman investigate properly does nothing to address that.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 February 2022
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. News Article
    Pelvic mesh implant manufacturer Johnson & Johnson group has reached a $300m settlement in two class actions, after thousands of women worldwide reported complications from the mesh products including chronic pain, painful sexual intercourse and incontinence. It marks the largest settlement in a product liability class action in Australian history, and is subject to federal court approval. Shine Lawyers led the Australian class actions and alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to properly test the devices and played down their risk to both surgeons and patients. Women have suffered complications including mesh exposure and erosion – when the mesh pokes through the vaginal wall or cuts through internal tissue – vaginal scarring, fistula formation, painful sex, and pelvic, back and leg pains. Some of these complications may occur years after surgery and can be difficult to treat. Shine Lawyers’ Rebecca Jancauskas said the settlement would help support women’s ongoing treatment needs. “We welcome this settlement which brings the litigation to an end,” she said. “If the federal court approves the settlement our focus will shift to the important task of distributing the settlement to group members.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 September 2022
  14. News Article
    Survivors of the contaminated blood scandal have been awarded interim government payments after a 40-year battle, but thousands of parents and children of the victims have still received nothing. Ministers have accepted the urgency of the need to make the £100,000 payments to about 3,000 surviving victims, after being warned that those mistakenly infected with HIV and hepatitis C were dying at the rate of one every four days. But parents and children of the victims accused the government of perpetuating the scandal by failing to recognise their own trauma and loss in today’s announcement. Contaminated blood products administered in the 1970s and 1980s to up to 6,000 people have already led to the deaths of more than 2,400 people in the biggest treatment scandal in NHS history. The government said it intends to make payments to those who have been infected and bereaved partners in England by the end of October. The same payments will be made in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Announcing the plan, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said: “While nothing can make up for the pain and suffering endured by those affected by this tragic injustice, we are taking action to do right by victims and those who have tragically lost their partners by making sure they receive these interim payments as quickly as possible. “We will continue to stand by all those impacted by this horrific tragedy, and I want to personally pay tribute to all those who have so determinedly fought for justice.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 August 2022
  15. News Article
    Legal costs in some lower-value medical negligence claims can be double or even triple the amount of compensation paid to patients. Figures in the Medical Defence Union’s (MDU’s) annual report for 2021 reveal the average sum paid in claimants’ legal costs on medical claims settled for up to £10,000 was in excess of £18,500. For claims settled between £10,000 and £25,000, the average was nearly £35,000. The not-for-profit indemnifier called on the Government to proceed quickly with the reforms needed to the clinical negligence system to make disproportionate legal costs a thing of the past. Its chief executive Dr Matthew Lee said: "Disproportionate legal costs are one of several defects in the current litigation system and particularly affect lower value claims. "It cannot be right for legal costs paid to claimants’ lawyers to regularly exceed the damages paid to claimants by double or triple the amount." Read full story Source: Independent Practitioner Today, 9 August 2022
  16. News Article
    A scheme handing payments to those affected by the contaminated blood scandal will be announced this week, as ministers scramble to help those harmed by the “historic wrong”. Whitehall sources confirmed that a programme handing interim payments will be confirmed in the coming days, once officials have ironed out issues to ensure that victims are not taxed on the payments or have their benefits affected by them. It is thought that ministers accept recent recommendations that infected people and bereaved partners should get “payments of no less than £100,000”. More than 4,000 people are in line for the payment. Kit Malthouse, the cabinet office minister, has been prioritising the scheme in the last week to ensure payments are made as soon as possible. “The infected blood scandal was a tragedy for everyone involved, and the prime minister strongly believes that all those who suffered so terribly as a result of this injustice should receive compensation as quickly as possible,” said a No 10 source. “He has tasked ministers with resolving this issue so that interim payments can be made to all those infected as soon as possible, and we will set out the full details later this week.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 August 2022
  17. News Article
    Pelvic mesh campaigner Kath Sansom has met with the health secretary Steve Barclay to discuss financial redress for those suffering complications from the procedure. The UK government decided last year not to provide compensation to women whose lives had been affected by vaginal mesh implants. But Kath Sansom, a Cambridgeshire mum and former journalist for this news outlet, has continued campaigning and says she will put pressure on the health secretary to revisit the issue. It also comes as the government revealed victims of the 1970s and 1980s blood scandal will receive compensation for the impact it has had on their lives. Ahead of her meeting with the Secretary of State for Health, she said: “We [mesh injured] deserve to be compensated based on the fact we are suffering lifelong damage from a health treatment that caused avoidable harm. “It is not our fault this happened to us and the State should take responsibility.” Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock issued a public apology when a public inquiry in 2020 revealed a shocking extent of patient failings and lack of regulation for mesh victims. “The State has apologised for the suffering of the mesh community, which is an acknowledgement of responsibility,” Kath added. Read full story Source: Cambs Times, 5 August 2022
  18. News Article
    Three former health secretaries have called on the government to urgently pay compensation to victims of the contaminated blood scandal. The chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, Sir Brian Langstaff, has recommended that each victim should receive a provisional sum of £100,000. One woman who developed hepatitis C from infected blood told the BBC the news was "incredibly significant". The government has said it will urgently consider any recommendations. Former health secretaries Andy Burnham, Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock told the BBC it was important to act quickly because the life expectancy of many victims had been shortened by infections they had contracted. A lawyer representing about 15,000 claimants also argued that victims should receive compensation "immediately". Des Collins said payment must be made within "days or weeks", and he would step up pressure from Monday. Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 August 2022
  19. News Article
    Almost 75 years since its foundation, the NHS is struggling with delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the “greatest workforce crisis” in its history. A report from MPs on the health committee this week showed 105,000 vacancies for doctors, nurses and midwives, as thousands quit owing to burnout, bullying, pension rules and low pay. Jeremy Hunt, the committee’s chairman, said that the “persistent understaffing in the NHS poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety”. Lawyers warned that the crisis risked increasing the number of negligence claims. Spending on claims by NHS Resolution rose to £2.5 billion in 2021-22 compared with £2.3 billion in the previous year, according to its annual report published last week. The bill increased despite initiatives to cut the number of cases going to court and foster greater collaboration with claimant lawyers. Claimant lawyers welcomed NHS Resolution’s more collaborative approach and desire to resolve cases sooner. They argued, however, that the defensive culture remained and suggested there should be a greater focus on patient safety and learning from mistakes. John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said that NHS Resolution’s denials and delays meant that injured patients had to turn to lawyers to find answers. He said that earlier investigation into patient safety incidents and earlier admissions of liability by NHS trusts would speed up the system, cutting costs and human misery. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 28 July 2022
  20. News Article
    Maternity failings continue to account for the majority of billions of pounds spent by the NHS on clinical negligence claims, as an NHS body warns of the “devastating” consequences of poor care. Two-thirds of the £13bn spent by the NHS in 2021-21 in respect of negligence claims was related to maternity care, according to new data. A report released by NHS Resolution said it was “a stark reminder that although the NHS remains one of the safest healthcare systems in the world within which to give birth, avoidable errors within maternity can have devastating consequences for the child, mother and wider family, as well as the NHS staff involved.” According to the figures, 1,243 maternity-related negligence claims were reported to the NHS in 2021-22, up from 1,571 in the previous year. The data also shows that 200 claims relating to cerebral palsy or brain damage were received in 2021-22 – a decrease from the previous year, in which there were 250. The organisation said that the growth in obstetrics claims over the past three years was due to trusts reporting cases of cerebral palsy and brain damage earlier through its early notification scheme, which was launched in 2017. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 July 2022
  21. News Article
    A jury ordered Becton, Dickinson and Co to pay $255,000 to a man who sued the company, alleging he had been injured by its hernia repair surgical mesh, according to a court filing. The verdict in Columbus, Ohio federal court comes in the second bellwether trial in a multidistrict litigation over the company's hernia mesh products, which were sold by C.R. Bard Inc before its 2017 acquisition by Becton Dickinson. The first bellwether trial last year ended with a verdict in favour of the company. More than 16,000 cases have been consolidated before Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus in Columbus, in the third-largest pending MDL nationwide. Plaintiffs claim that the mesh products caused infections, pain, inflammation and other problems. The verdict came in a case brought by Antonio Milanesi, who had Bard's Ventralex mesh implanted during a hernia repair in 2007, and his wife, Alicia Morz De Milanesi. They claimed that Milanesi developed an infection and bowel abscess because of the mesh, requiring a second surgery in 2017. Like other plaintiffs in the MDL, the Milanesis say the mesh products are defectively designed because their polypropylene material degrades when in implanted in human tissue. Read full story Source: Reuters, 16 April 2022
  22. News Article
    Thalidomide survivors living in Scotland will receive lifelong financial support, the Scottish government has announced. Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said he hoped the commitment to provide grants would reassure those affected. There are 50 known survivors of the banned pregnancy drug living in Scotland, most now in their 60s. They are among thousands born with limb deformities after their mothers took thalidomide while pregnant. The drug was commonly used to treat morning sickness from 1958 to 1961. In 2013 the Scottish government committed £14.2m to help survivors over a 10-year period, with the money going on health and living costs. Ministers have now extended that agreement, with grants to be allocated to survivors on a needs basis, as assessed by the Thalidomide Trust. Mr Yousaf said: "This funding is used to give thalidomide survivors as much assistance as they need to maintain their independence. It has been a vital support in helping people adapt their homes and manage their pain. "I hope this lifelong commitment to continue this support will reassure recipients and help them deal with any challenges they face." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 July 2022
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 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
×
×
  • Create New...