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Are claims rising or falling?

The National Health Service Litigation Authority has just published its report and accounts for 2005/06. Graham Bell from TS&P was the only claimant lawyer to attend the NHSLA's annual meeting and reports as follows.

When TS&P reviewed last years report, despite the overall fall in number of claims notified the increase in letters of claim received might indicate that the downward trend was coming to an end. The 2005/06 figures would indicate a likelihood of that prediction being proved accurate. The total letters of claim received were 4,516.00 which was up 4.6% on the previous year and 8.3% over the previous two years.

Lies damned lies and statistics

As with all statistics great care needs to be taken when attempting to draw conclusions from the figures. Despite a modest 1.6% increase in clinical claims it should be emphasised that the NHS workload is also increasing so the percentage of errors is probably static. The NHSLA is quite right to point out that the number of claims is very small in relation to the number of patients treated by NHS trusts in England and Wales. However, it is well known that very few errors lead to complaints let alone formal claims.

What about the future?

Overall trusts achieved their best ever risk assessment scores which might be thought to point towards improved performance in the future.

However, there are two issues that we believe have the potential to reverse the recent performance improvement. The first relates to training and experience. Consultants that we speak to are virtually unanimous in voicing profound concerns regarding the training and promotion of hospital doctors. Whilst the exceptional calibre of medical students is acknowledged they have grave reservations over the process of early specialisation and fast track promotion which means that a doctor can achieve consultant grade with only a fraction of the experience required in the past. It is widely believed that less experienced senior staff will lead to an increasing number of errors in the future. The second relates to the topical issue of the calibre of nursing recruits. The Daily Telegraph (5 August 2006) reported that in Kent it had been found that a third of nurses expecting to graduate from a local university had failed basic English and maths tests and needed to be tested on whether they understood the 24 hour clock! It was reported that The Nursing and Midwifery Council had become worried about falling standards in education.

In our experience few claims arise as a result of nursing error as opposed to errors by doctors and midwives but that could change especially if trusts attempt to recruit less experienced staff to help deal with budgetary pressures.

For further enquiries please contact Graham Bell (view full profile) on 01892 701358 or email graham.bell@ts-p.co.uk.

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