THE NORTH’S Department of Health is facing a bill of more than £250 million (€308 million) for medical negligence cases over the last five years, according to a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office.
The department has already paid out £116 million to settle cases, the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland, Kieran Donnelly, said in his report published yesterday. Of this, £77 million was in compensation and £39 million was in legal and administrative costs.
Moreover, he reported, the Department of Health estimates it could cost a further £136 million to meet the costs of all the active negligence claims currently in the system.
Approximately 83,000 adverse incidents are reported each year by the North’s health and social care (HSC) trusts. “Apart from the distress caused to patients, relatives and front-line staff these lapses in safety are a very expensive diversion of health care funds,” the report stated.
“More needs to be done to ensure an open culture and to encourage the reporting of adverse incidents or near-misses as a mechanism for learning lessons and driving improvements,” it added.
Mr Donnelly said that overall Northern Ireland enjoyed high standards of medical care but that reducing such claims and incidents was a “core task” for the department and the health trusts.
“Two factors are crucial to this: the establishment of a culture in which incidents can be reported easily, honestly and without fear of blame; and the ability to ensure that lessons learned from these incidents are successfully taken on board by HSC staff,” he added.
The Alliance health spokesman Kieran McCarthy said the extent of the negligence payouts was shocking and called on Minister for Health Edwin Poots to take action. “I think the health Minister must urgently look at this report and see what changes he can make to cut down on these claims,” he said.
Mr McCarthy added: “Is this bill so high because of genuine mistakes, a lack of training, too much pressure on staff or poor equipment? I am sure that by looking at the cause of these negligence claims the Minister will be able to drastically reduce these costs.”
