Clinical negligence costs: taking action to safeguard NHS sustainability.
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Publication Date
2020-03-02Journal Title
BMJ (Clinical research ed.)
ISSN
0959-8146
Volume
368
Pages
m552
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Physical Medium
Electronic
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The NHS paid £2.4bn (€2.8bn; $3.1bn) in clinical negligence claims in 2018-19, according to NHS Resolution (formerly the NHS Litigation Authority).1 This sum equates to about 2% of the entire budget for the NHS in England (roughly £115bn). But even these startling figures do not provide the full picture, since NHS Resolution also has to account for claims likely to be received in the future. Now standing at £83.4bn, the amount “set aside” for such claims is among the most substantial public sector financial liabilities faced by the UK government,2 second only to nuclear decommissioning (£131bn).3
Keywords
Humans, Liability, Legal, Malpractice, Costs and Cost Analysis, Risk Management, State Medicine, United Kingdom
Sponsorship
DP, EL, and MDW are supported by the Health Foundation’s grant to the University of Cambridge for The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute. MDW is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) senior investigator (NF-SI-0617-10026).
Funder references
Health Foundation (unknown)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m552
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/303520
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International