Call for reform as hospitals pay out £217mn

London Evening Standard/LondonA call was made for changes to the NHS compensation scheme after London hospitals paid £217mn for medical blunders last year.Lawyers said thousands more nurses and doctors could be hired if the cash were retained within the NHS rather than used to fund rehabilitation in private hospitals.A new breakdown revealed that health trusts in the capital accounted for £217mn of the £1.1bn paid by the NHS Litigation Authority in clinical negligence claims and legal fees in 2013-14. Barts Health, which runs five east London hospitals including The Royal London in Whitechapel, paid £22mn, including more than £8mn for claims relating to childbirth.Other trusts in the city responsible for some of Britain’s biggest payouts were St George’s in Tooting (£17.6mn), North Middlesex in Edmonton (£17.2mn) and King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill (£16.4mn).Great Ormond Street Hospital was responsible for one of the biggest settlements in NHS history when the high court awarded Maisha Najeeb, of Ilford, compensation worth up to £24mn last year.She underwent an operation there in June 2010, at the age of 10, in which a “tragic mistake” saw glue being wrongly injected into her brain due to a mix-up of syringes. It left her profoundly brain damaged.The Medical Defence Union, which indemnifies claims against GPs and doctors in private practice, said awards were so high because the courts assessed future care costs on the basis of rehabilitation being provided in private rather than NHS hospitals.NHS Litigation Authority figures for the year 2014-15 are due to be released on Friday, amid fears that costs are continuing to escalate by 10% a year.