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Showing results for tags 'Negligence claim'.
Found 141 results
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News Article
Stillborn baby's parents receive £2.8m from Nottingham hospital trust
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A couple whose child died in the womb after mistakes by maternity staff have received a £2.8m settlement. Sarah Hawkins was in labour for six days before Harriet was stillborn at Nottingham City Hospital in April 2016. Hospital bosses initially found "no obvious fault", but an external inquiry identified 13 failings in care. Solicitors representing Mrs Hawkins and husband Jack said it was believed to be the largest payout for a stillbirth clinical negligence case. Mrs Hawkins was nearly 41 weeks' pregnant when Harriet was delivered, almost nine hours after dying. The couple were first told their child had died of an infection but refused to accept this and launched their own investigation. A Root Cause Analysis Investigation Report published in 2018 concluded the death was "almost certainly preventable". The report said errors included a delay in applying appropriate foetal monitoring, the important omission of information on an antenatal advice sheet and a failure to follow the Risk Management Policy for maternity. It also found failures to record or pass on information correctly, failure to follow correct guidelines and delays in administering the correct treatment. Following the report's publication, the hospital trust apologised and said major changes would be made. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 December 2021 -
News Article
Great Ormond Street Hospital admits errors led to boy’s death
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Mistakes by Great Ormond Street contributed to the death of a five-year-old boy, the children’s hospital has admitted – just months after it concluded a legal case with his family in which it denied responsibility. The world-renowned children’s hospital failed to flag results of a crucial blood test, showing that Walif Yafi had a dangerous infection, to doctors at King’s College Hospital where he had been receiving treatment. He died a few weeks later, in September 2017. In September this year, Walif’s parents agreed an out-of-court settlement with Great Ormond Street, which admitted negligence but denied liability for the boy’s death. However, this week the hospital admitted an expert had reviewed the case ahead of the settlement and concluded its actions did contribute to Walif’s death. The hospital said it had been under no duty to share these results with Walif’s parents at the time. Walif had a liver transplant in 2012 after suffering cancer shortly after his birth, and was being overseen by Great Ormond Street as an outpatient, as well as by the transplant team at King’s College Hospital, in south London. On 24 August 2017, he had a routine blood test at Great Ormond Street, which showed he had an adenovirus infection – something that is common in children whose immune system is being suppressed by drugs, as Walif’s was because of his transplant. If untreated, the infection can be deadly. But the blood test result was not communicated to the team at King’s College Hospital. Shortly afterwards, Walif’s health deteriorated and he was admitted to hospital. He was transferred to King’s College Hospital a week later, and it was not until 7 September that the infection was confirmed. By this stage, he was severely unwell and, though he began anti-viral therapy, Walif suffered multiple organ failure from the spread of the infection. On 30 September, he suffered cardiac arrest and died. It was only when approached by The Independent this week that the trust revealed its expert had, in the course of negotiating the settlement with Walif’s parents, determined the hospital did materially contribute to the child’s death. Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 November 2020 -
News Article
NHS compensation payouts have doubled in six years, figures show
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS Payouts linked to medication blunders have doubled in six years, fuelling record spending, official figures show. The NHS figures show that in 2019/20, the health service spent £24.3 million on negligence claims relating to medication errors - up from £12.8 million in 2013/14. The statistics show that in the past 15 years, almost £220 million has been spent on claims relating to the blunders. Previous research has suggested that medication errors may be killing up to 22,000 patients in England every year. Errors occur when patients are given the wrong drugs, doses which are too high or low, or medicines which cause dangerous reactions. In some cases, patients have been given medication which was intended for another person entirely, sometimes with fatal consequences. Other studies suggest that 1 in 12 prescriptions dispensed by the NHS involve a mistake in medication, dose or length of course. In some cases, patients have died after being given a dose of morphine ten times that which should have been administered, with other fatalities involving fatal reactions. Confusion often occurs when drugs are not labelled clearly, or when packaging of different medications looks similar. Jeremy Hunt, now chairman of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, said the NHS needed to make far more progress preventing harms, instead of seeing an ever increasing negligence bill. He said: “It is nothing short of immoral that we often spend more cleaning up the mess of numerous tragedies in the courts, than we actually do on the doctors and nurses who could prevent them." Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 3 October 2020 -
News ArticleYesterday marked the second World Patient Safety Day, and this year’s theme shined a light on health worker safety – those on the frontline of the pandemic have been selfless in their sacrifices to care for an ailing global population. What has become ever clearer is that a health system is nothing without those who work within it and that we must prioritise the safety and wellbeing of health workers, because without safe health workers we cannot have safe patients. Improving maternity safety has been a priority for some time – although rare, when things go wrong the consequences are unthinkable for families and the professionals caring for them. Maternity negligence makes up 50% of the total value of negligence claims across all NHS sectors, according to the latest NHS Resolution annual report and accounts. It states there were claims of around £2.4 billion in 2019/20, which is in the region of £6.5 million a day. This cost says nothing of the suffering families and professionals associated. However, without investing in the maternity frontline we cannot hope to make integral systemic changes to improve maternity safety and save mothers’ and babies’ lives, writes Sara Ledger, head of research and development at Baby Lifeline in the Independent. "We owe it to every mother and baby to rigorously and transparently scrutinise the safety of maternity services, which will be in no small way linked to the support staff receive." Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 September 2020
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News ArticleNHS hospitals have been forced to pay millions of pounds to regulators after wrongly claiming their maternity units were among the safest in the country. Seven NHS trusts, including some now at the centre of major care scandals, will have to pay back a total of £8.5m after self-assessments of their maternity services were found to be false. Families whose babies died as a result of avoidable errors at some of the hospitals told The Independent it was further evidence of poor governance and management failings. NHS Resolution, which acts as the health service’s insurer for clinical negligence, launched the maternity incentive scheme in 2018 in an effort to focus action on 10 key safety areas in maternity, including ensuring they have systems in place to review deaths, monitor women and plan staffing levels as well as reporting incidents to the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch which investigates maternity incidents in the NHS. Among the trusts forced to give money back over the first two years of the scheme include Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, which paid back £953,000. An inquiry into its maternity service found a dozen women and more than 40 babies died as a result of poor care in one of the largest maternity scandals in NHS history. East Kent Hospitals University Trust, which is facing an inquiry into baby deaths and a criminal prosecution by the Care Quality Commission over the death of baby Harry Richford in 2017, face paying back £2.1m over two years. Derek Richford, who helped expose failings at East Kent after the death of his grandson, told The Independent it was “abhorrent” that the trust claimed “vital NHS funds by falsely claiming that they had achieved 10/10 for maternity safety when the truth was in fact 6/10. East Kent Trust did this two years running and even when asked to check their submission, reconfirmed the erroneous data to NHS Resolution.” An evaluation of the scheme by NHS Resolution said it was “recognised that recent examples of poor governance from trusts in relation to the certification of submissions require further action”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 March 2021
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News Article
Unsafe maternity care has cost the NHS £8.2bn in 15 years
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
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”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 September 2021 -
News ArticleDetectives are examining a series of baby deaths at a troubled NHS trust as the number of cases being investigated by an independent inquiry nears 200 – making it one of the worst maternity scandals in NHS history. The Independent has learned officers in the serious crime directorate at Kent Police are looking at unsafe maternity care at the East Kent Hospitals University Trust and have held a series of high-level meetings, including with the Crown Prosecution Service. The discussions are believed to centre on the possibility of opening a criminal investigation and bringing charges related to corporate manslaughter and/or gross negligence manslaughter. If this goes ahead, it would be only the second time an NHS trust had faced a corporate manslaughter charge. Today, former health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was “deeply concerned” about the new revelations and added that this latest scandal showed “deep-seated cultural and systemic issues” in maternity care. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 May 2021
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News Article
Breast implant victims to receive compensation
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than 2,500 women who were victims of the PIP breast implant scandal should receive compensation, a French appeal court has decided. It also upheld an earlier judgement finding German company TUV Rheinland, which awarded safety certificates for the faulty implants, negligent. The case in Paris involved 540 British women, who said they suffered long-term health effects. The results could have far-reaching implications for other victims. Jan Spivey is one of the women in the case. She was given PIP implants after she had a mastectomy due to breast cancer. She developed sore and aching joints, chest and back pain, fatigue, severe headaches and anxiety. Once removed it was clear her implants had been leaking silicone into her body. She says the implants have had a massive impact on her mental health. "My PIP implants from 20 years ago are still impacting on my life and my health and my wellbeing, even today." Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 May 2021 -
EventuntilNHS Resolution’s Safety and Learning team, in partnership with the National Infusion and Vascular Access Society (NIVAS), is hosting a virtual forum on extravasation injury claims, learning and guidance. The purpose of this forum is to raise awareness from the extravasation injury claims and to help spread learning and process review across health providers. The format is interactive, with delegate questions and panel discussion. Andrew Barton, Chair of NIVAS and IV nurse consutlant (NIVAS and Frimley NHS Trust) Alison Macefield, Deputy Head of Midwifery (Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust) Jorge Leon-Villapalos, Consultant in Plastic Surgery and Burns (Chelsea & Westminster) Lisa-Marie Musgrave, Senior Claims Manager (NHS Resolution) Samantha Thomas, Associate Safety and Learning Lead London (NHS Resolution) Register
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EventThis conference, chaired by Simon Hammond Director of Claims Management NHS Resolution will update clinicians and managers on Clinical Negligence with a particular focus on current issues and the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact on clinical negligence claims. Featuring leading legal experts, and experienced clinicians the event will provide an update on current claims the conference will discuss why patients litigate, and responding to claims including claims regarding Covid-19. There will be an extended masterclass on trends in clinical negligence claims and responding to claims followed by an extended focus on maternity claims, and also claims related to medication error. The conference will close with a case study on the advantages of bringing together complaints, claims and patients safety investigation, and practical experiences of Coronavirus complaints at claims at an NHS Trust – including understanding the standard of care on which services should be judged, and a final session on supporting clinicians when a claim is made against them. For further information and to book your place visit: https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/conferences-masterclasses/clinical-negligence or email nicki@hc-uk.org.uk We are delighted to offer 3 free places for hub members. Email info@pslhub.org for the discount code. Follow on Twitter @HCUK_Clare #clinicalnegligence
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EventThis Westminster Forum conference will be an important opportunity to examine the next steps for improving patient safety in the NHS in the context of the ongoing pandemic, the updated Patient Safety Strategy, and the MHRA consultation launched to improve patient safety and regulation around medical devices. Delegates will also discuss priorities in the context of the Health and Care Bill, which includes measures aiming to strengthen the role of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) in improving patient safety. Key areas for discussion include: system learning - assessing approaches, sharing best practice, supporting the workforce, education and training, and building a learning culture patient involvement - examining priorities for involving patients and the public within patient safety regulation - options for a more flexible and adaptable approach clinical negligence - how best to improve the negligence system the role of the HSIB - including its scope going forward and informing whole system learning COVID-19 - looking at what has been learned for patient safety and how best to drive improvements in recovery from the pandemic and into the future. Register
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Event
Clinical negligence: Update for clinicians & managers
Sam posted an event in Community Calendar
This conference, which is Chaired by Simon Hammond, Director of Claims Management, NHS Resolution, will update clinicians and managers on clinical negligence with a particular focus on current issues and the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on clinical negligence claims. Featuring leadings legal experts, NHS Resolution and experienced clinicians the event will provide an update on current claims the conference will discuss why patients litigate, The Coronavirus Act 2020 and Clinical Negligence Scheme for Coronavirus, responding to claims regarding COVID-19 and the implications of the coronavirus clinical negligence claims protocol. There will be an extended masterclass on trends in clinical negligence claims and responding to claims followed by an extended focus on Maternity Claims. The conference will close with a case study on the advantages of bringing together complaints, claims and patients safety investigation, and practical experiences of coronavirus complaints and claims at an NHS Trust – including understanding the standard of care on which services should be judged, and a final session on supporting clinicians when a claim is made against them. For more information visit https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/clinical-negligence or email kate@hc-uk.org.uk hub members receive a 20% discount. Please email info@pslhub.org for discount code Follow the conversation on Twitter #clinicalnegligence -
EventThis conference will update clinicians and managers on clinical negligence with a particular focus on current issues and the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on clinical negligence claims. Featuring leadings legal experts, NHS Resolution and experienced clinicians the event will provide an update on current claims the conference will discuss why patients litigate, The Coronavirus Act 2020 and Clinical Negligence Scheme for Coronavirus, responding to claims regarding COVID-19 and the implications of the coronavirus clinical negligence claims protocol. There will be an extended masterclass on trends in clinical negligence claims and responding to claims followed by an extended focus on Maternity Claims. The conference will close with a case study on the advantages of bringing together complaints, claims and patients safety investigation, and practical experiences of coronavirus complaints at claims at an NHS Trust – including understanding the standard of care on which services should be judged, and a final session on supporting clinicians when a claim is made against them. Further information and registration or email: kate@hc-uk.org.uk hub members receive 10% discount. Email: info@pslhub.org
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Content ArticleRepresentatives from Mesh Ireland and Mesh Survivors have this week appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee, where questions were raised about access to vital diagnostic machines and treament for women who have had vaginal mesh implants put in. Vaginal mesh devices were used to treat issues in women after childbirth, or in their later years, and while it’s not known how many procedures were carried out, it’s believed there were more than 10,000 on the public system alone. Women have experienced painful complications as a result of the procedure and Founder of the Mesh Survivors Ireland Campaign, Melanie Power, who’s a solicitor from Meelick, says many women are unable to work and can’t afford the cost of ongoing treatment. She believes questions need to be answered on why women affected by a post-natal procedure which can cause chronic pain are being means tested for the medical card. Listen to the full interview on Clare FM below.
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Content ArticleIn this letter nine charities and patient organisations write to Sajid Javid MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, urging him to reconsider plans to impose fixed costs on lower value clinical negligence claims. They argue that the proposals are a threat to both access to justice and patient safety.
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Content ArticleRisk managers and the insurers with whom we work have the greatest opportunity in healthcare today to improve patient safety. Our most egregious mistakes become medical malpractice claims and lawsuits. Some of these go to trial where the outcome is public; however, the least defensible cases are settled without a trial. Almost every settlement includes a confidentiality or nondisclosure clause (NDC). Such clauses become “gag orders.” Providers who could learn from the mistake of a colleague do not, and the same mistake is repeated, often many times over. The stories of these settlements are a rich source of learning, and it’s time to tell them—anonymously. No naming names, no disclosure of settlement amounts, no “blame and shame.” Stories are powerful, attention-grabbing, and memorable. Telling them is a unique opportunity to link the prevention of patient harm to the healing mission of healthcare and acknowledge the common wish of every plaintiff that “this won’t happen to someone else.”
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Content ArticleThe distribution of malpractice claims among physicians is not well understood. If claim-prone physicians account for a substantial share of all claims, the ability to reliably identify them at an early stage could guide efforts to improve care. Using data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, Studdert et al. analysed 66,426 claims paid against 54,099 physicians from 2005 through 2014. The authors calculated concentrations of claims among physicians. They found over a 10-year period, a small number of physicians with distinctive characteristics accounted for a disproportionately large number of paid malpractice claims.
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Content ArticleDo patients’ and families’ experiences with communication-and-resolution programmes suggest aspects of institutional responses to injury that could better promote reconciliation after medical injuries? This interview study of 40 patients, family members, and hospital staff in Australia found that patients have a strong need to be heard after medical injury that is often unmet. Although 18 of 30 patient and family participants (60%) reported positive experiences with communication-and-resolution programmes overall and continued to receive care at the hospital, they reported that hospitals rarely communicated information about efforts to prevent recurrences. Opportunities are available to provide institutional responses to medical injuries that are more patient centred.
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Content ArticleBob Hanscom, J.D., is retiring this week after a nearly 30-year career championing patient safety improvement. He has been Vice President of Risk Management and Analytics at Coverys since 2013 and earlier held similar positions at CRICO and CRICO Strategies. He was Vice President of Clinical Services at Lahey Clinic from 1993 to 1998 and prior to that practiced law.
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Content ArticleThis is an Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons on 5 September 2022, which calls on the Government to implement the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review in full, in particular recommendation 4 of the report calling for the establishment of separate schemes to meet the costs of additional care and support to those who have suffered avoidable harm.
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Content ArticleMedical litigation claim and costs in UK are rising. This study from Lane, Bhome and Somani analysed the 10-year trend in litigation costs for individual clinical specialties in the UK from 2009/10 to 2018/19.The authors concluded that addressing the issue of litigations is complex. Medically there are speciality specific issues that require attention, whilst some general measures are common to all: effective communication, setting realistic targets and maintaining a motivated, adequately staffed workforce. These, alongside legal reforms, may reduce the financial burden of increasing litigation on the NHS.
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Content ArticleMedication errors are any Patient Safety Incidents (PSI) where there has been an error in the process of prescribing, preparing, dispensing, and administering, monitoring or providing advice on medicines. Medication errors can occur at many steps in patient care, from ordering the medication to the time when the patient is administered the drug. From April 1 2015 to 31 March 2020 NHS Resolution received 1,420 claims relating to errors in the medication process. Of those claims, 487 claims settled with damages paid, costing the NHS £35 million (excluding legal costs). NHS Resolution initial data for medication errors indicates that anticoagulants, opioids, antimicrobials, antidepressants, and anticonvulsants are the most common medications to be implicated in incidents.
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Content ArticleCompensation claims are a useful source of information on patient safety research. This study in The Journal of Patient Safety aimed to determine the main causes of surgical compensation claims and their financial impact on the health system. The authors analysed the frequency, causes, consequences, locations and surgical settings of compensation claims brought against the surgical area of the Murcia Health System between 2002 and 2018. The study found that the most frequent causes for claims were surgical error (42.4%) and treatment error (30.9%), and that the main surgical settings involved were orthopaedic surgery and traumatology (27.4%), gynaecology and obstetrics (25.7%) and “general surgery” (17.2%).
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Content ArticleOn the 21 July 2022 NHS Resolution’s Safety and Learning team, in partnership with the National Infusion and Vascular Access Society, hosted a virtual forum on extravasation injury claims. The intention of this event was to raise awareness of these injuries and help spread learning and process review across health providers.
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Content ArticleNHS Resolution received 172 claims relating to anti-infective medications between 1 April 2015 until 31 March 2020. Anti-infective medications include antibiotics, antivirals and antifungals. The analysis in this leaflet focuses on closed claims that have been settled with damages paid and concern an element of the prescribing process: prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, administering and monitoring. Claims concerning a failure to recognise that an anti-infective was indicated have not been included within the analysis.
