St George’s NHS Trust pays out almost £25m in damages in four years
By Sian Bayley, Local Government Correspondent
A hospital trust’s compensation payments have quadrupled in four years.
And St George’s NHS Trust has also paid out almost £25m in settled damages since January 2016, for claims such as failure and delay of treatment, errors, assault, and even being hit by an object.
The trust was taken out of special measures last year, but still ‘requires improvement,’ according to the latest report by the Care Quality Commission.
The information showed the Trust paid out £24,837,377 in the period from January 2016 to March 2019, for a total of 140 claims.
Last year saw 53 cases settled, amounting to £10,490,999. This compares to just 13 cases in 2015/16, amounting to £2,346,712.
Many cases took years to settle – but the report also notes the number of complaints has been cut by a third – only seven claims were actually received by the Trust last year, compared to 20 in 2017/18.
A large number of claims were settled last year, resulting in a higher than usual payout.
The most common claim was for failure/delay to treatment.
These 26 cases resulted in £4,869,744 in payouts.
This was followed by failure/delay to diagnosis in 17 cases and amounting to £5,977,094 in payouts.
The third most common reason for claims was inappropriate treatment, in 11 cases, leading to £1,748,729 in payouts.
Other claims included errors in medicine or surgery, being hit by an object, equipment malfunctioning, assault and wrong site surgery.
But the report would not reveal the exact number of each of these cases for data protection reasons, because there were fewer than five.
A spokesman for St George’s said: “We care for hundreds of thousands of patients every year at St George’s, and thankfully, errors of this kind are extremely rare.
“In those cases where harm has occurred, it is absolutely right that we apologise to the patient and/or their family, and ensure lessons are learned to reduce the risk of errors happening in the future.
“NHS Resolution handles any claims for compensation on behalf of the Trust. NHS Resolution also meets the associated costs in those cases where compensation is awarded.
“We are members of the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST), to which we make annual contributions.”
Everyone at the South London Press thanks you for your continued support.
Former Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has encouraged everyone in the country who can afford to do so to buy a newspaper, and told the Downing Street press briefing:
“A FREE COUNTRY NEEDS A FREE PRESS, AND THE NEWSPAPERS OF OUR COUNTRY ARE UNDER SIGNIFICANT FINANCIAL PRESSURE”
If you can afford to do so, we would be so grateful if you can make a donation which will allow us to continue to bring stories to you, both in print and online. Or please make cheques payable to “MSI Media Limited” and send by post to South London Press, Unit 112, 160 Bromley Road, Catford, London SE6 2NZ