The 2023/2024 year cost the NHS £2.8bn to settle claims, according to the official report by NHS Resolution, the agency that deals with litigation over NHS care failings. However, this isn’t immediately clear when these claims arose because many legal claims over medical negligence can take quite a while from the incident occurring to the claim being settled. In fact the annual report says that on average it takes 3 years from the incident during which liability occurs to the claim even being reported to NHS Resolution.

What MMN was not able to immediately determine from the available information was how long it takes on average for a liability claim to be fully resolved. This is probably because it’s an embarrasingly long period of time In most cases of litigation, the victims tend to feel as though the government agency that is supposed to be paying them compensation appears to be deliberately dragging it’s feet, almost as if hoping that the patient dies before it is settled. The payment of settlements to former sub-postmasters as a result of the ‘largest miscarriage of justice in British History’ is a prime example, where they will first come up with a settlement offer that is derisory and insulting, and when that is refused because it is derisory and insulting, go away again for a very long time.

NHS Resolution does claim that it works with medical professionals to ensure lessons from incidents that resulted in litigation are learned. The obvious reason is to is to reduce the misery created from medical malpractice, which also has the benefit of reducing the number of incidents that could give rise to eventual financial liability. However, MMN wonders how much of that is improving clinical practice, and how much is techniques for creating obstacles to litigation being effective.

MMN knows of a maternity case that could have ended in disaster but didn’t through luck rather than medical competence. As the situation had ultimately ended ok and the child survived healthy it wasn’t going to be realistic to sue for damages. However, the mother wanted clinical practice to change so that others didn’t go through what she went though, which would eventually be likely to end up in disaster for someone. However, the NHS Trust wriggled and squirmed to avoid accepting responsibility, eventually claiming that they had – unfortunately – coincidentally lost the two specific pages of the medical notes that would have been incriminating had they not been lost, so sadly, nothing could be proved.

Luckily, the mother was able to supply the missing two pages from her own copy of the medical notes that she had already obtained. Thus the NHS Trust had no choice then but to offer a grovelling apology and promise that things were now being done differently.

MMN’s recommendation remains that if something happens that could give rise to litigation, ensure to get your own copy of the relevant medical notes BEFORE signing a form that gives the solicitor the authority to get their own copy. When a solicitor asks for a copy of the medical notes it will often result in the medical notes being corrupted somehow – pages mysteriously ‘lost’ or extra ones added that purport to show evidence of some other factor that gets them off the hook. And make sure you get your own copy before there is ANY suggestion that you are going to sue them for anything.