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Press Round-Up: Regulatory and Professional Discipline – August and September 2025
Imogen Roberts
A total of £3.1 billion was paid out in compensation and associated costs across all clinical schemes in 2024/25. NHSR states that a top priority has been to work in a collaborative way to deliver a fair and timely resolution of claims. It reveals that in 2024/25 a record 83 percent of cases were kept out of formal Court processes, compared to 66 percent in 2016/17. The report acknowledges the stress for claimants of going through a Court process and highlights that it is committed to using non-adversarial dispute resolution approaches wherever possible. This includes the use of mediators to assist with resolving claims. This approach is extremely positive for claimants and bodes well for NHSR’s next three-year strategy - ‘Resolution through collaboration’. This is a positive trend and I am pleased that many of my clients won’t be retraumatised by the stress of litigation after the devastating consequences of a serious injury.
The top five case types with the most claims received (excluding GPI) were emergency medicine, orthopaedic surgery, obstetrics, gynaecology and general surgery. As a lawyer in this area, this accords with my own experience of current case trends.
As a specialist in birth injury claims, and given government pledges to improve ailing maternity services, I was keen to find out in detail about the latest position with maternity cases.
Although secondary to the human impact, the report underlines what we already know - that errors in maternity care can result in huge financial cost to the NHS. Of the £3.1 billion total referred to above, £1.3 billion related to maternity claims. Looked at as a whole, obstetric claims accounted for 11 percent of all clinical claims received in 2024/25 (excluding GPI), but amounted to 53 percent by value. This compared to 57 percent in 2023/24.
The NHSR report further states that 84 percent of NHS hospital trusts delivering maternity care in England were ‘fully compliant with all elements of the Maternity Incentive Scheme (MIS) (four results pending)’. The scheme is stated to be a financial incentive program for ‘Trusts that can demonstrate they have implemented a set of core safety actions, ultimately aiming to improve the quality of care for women, families and newborns.’
However, the report recognises that ‘avoidable errors in maternity and neonatal services still occur all too often’. NHSR says that by working collaboratively with other partners it is supporting ‘the Government’s ambition to halve rates of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and brain injuries that occur during or shortly after birth, by 2025.’ This is referring to the National Maternity Safety Ambition launched in 2015.
It is noteworthy on this issue that a progress report from two baby loss charities, Sands and Tommy’s, estimates that the stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates are in fact not on track to meet the target. With regard to brain injuries at birth, I am also not aware of any evidence that suggests the ambition will be achieved within the timeframe. Brain injuries per 1,000 live births were 4.14 in 2010 and 4.07 in 2020, a 2 percent negative change. The ongoing level of medical negligence claims in this area certainly indicates that there is a lot more to be done in order to meet the Government target. I hope that the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth programme (ABC), written about here by my colleague Kirsty Allen, will help to turn the tide.
James is the head of our Medical Negligence and Personal Injury practice and joined the firm in 2023 from Hodge, Jones & Allen. He has undertaken medical negligence and personal injury cases for over 30 years.
This year, World Cerebral Palsy Day falls on 6 October with a theme of ‘#Unique and United’. The Kingsley Napley Medical Negligence and Personal Injury team strongly support the vision of this global movement - which is about recognition of the 50 million people who are living with cerebral palsy and striving for a more accessible and inclusive world.
Legal claims for hypoxic brain injuries during birth – caused by a disruption in oxygen supply - remain prevalent. These injuries can have a devastating impact and lead to lifelong conditions including Cerebral Palsy. Indeed, claims relating to brain injuries sustained during birth account for a significant percentage of the total value of clinical negligence damages paid out each year. This is because the average amount of damages for such cases is very high, not infrequently running to tens of millions of pounds, with some impacted children having lifelong needs for care, treatment, equipment and housing. Nonetheless, claims for clinical negligence in this area can be particularly thorny to prove. In this article I consider when the doctrine of ‘material contribution’ – said by the Court of Appeal to have been ‘bedevilled by apparent inconsistency’ – may apply to hypoxic birth injury cases where the window for avoiding injury can be short. Does every minute really count?
The Government has this week confirmed the names of 14 Hospital Trusts that will be part of a rapid national investigation of maternity and newborn baby care across England that was announced by Wes Streeting back in June. (See my colleague Sharon Burkill’s blog on that announcement here). I am carefully watching the developments with regard to this investigation, knowing full well from my clients and their stories how desperately improvements to our maternity services are needed.
We were delighted to take part in a 15km walk on Saturday 6 September for the Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity (DVLCC) to raise funds for this excellent cause.
The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) has shared insights into safety concerns raised by women and families and other stakeholders about maternity and neonatal care within NHS England, highlighting once again the need for meaningful change.
Where there has been a concern surrounding medical care at an NHS Hospital, an internal investigation may be carried out and a written report produced to assist with learning from the incident. From a patient perspective, the report can be helpful in understanding more about the event and what, if anything, went wrong.
We are extremely concerned to read reports that treatment guidelines relating to glaucoma allegedly have not been followed at the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust in Warwickshire, leading to patients’ sight being harmed. Some patients are said to have suffered permanent visual damage.
Each year NHS Resolution, the body dealing with legal claims against the NHS, produces a report which provides insights into what is happening with clinical negligence claims. This year the picture is very mixed. It shows that claims for clinical negligence are on the rise although more cases are being settled without the need for Court proceedings. Nonetheless, despite Government efforts, high levels of maternity cases and associated costs persist.
In this blog, Richard Lodge talks about providing medical treatment to a non-english speaking patient
According to a recent article in The Guardian NHS England has confirmed that since 2022, equipment failures within the NHS have been responsible for:
Kingsley Napley’s head of Medical Negligence and Personal Injury has had an article published in this month’s APIL PI Focus magazine which includes a collection of articles examining the topic of birth injury. James’ piece deals with causation and the doctrine of material contribution in legal claims for hypoxic brain injuries during birth.
Hip replacement surgery is very common, restoring mobility and quality of life to thousands every year in the UK. It is recognised to be the most cost effective for the NHS in returning patients to productive lives. The components wearing surfaces may be metal, ceramic or plastic, and will often last over 20 to 25 years, or even longer for some people.
Concerns over NHS maternity care are very sadly seldom out of the news. As a lawyer who has specialised in birth injury claims over many years, it has been all too clear to me for a long time, that far too many women and babies, fail to receive anywhere close to adequate maternity care leading in some instances to devastating outcomes.
Fatigue within the NHS presents a significant risk to patient safety, yet in healthcare its consequences remain largely unrecognised despite the increasing demands on NHS workforces.
While we mostly associate dementia with the affect it can have on our memory, it can also affect our ability to think and communicate and our capacity to manage our own affairs. When undertaking legal proceedings, as solicitors, we have a duty to ensure that our clients have the mental capacity to give proper instructions to bring, or defend, a claim. Where our client does not have the necessary capacity, a Litigation Friend may be appointed
We are now in Action for Brain Injury week, run annually by the charity Headway to raise awareness and understanding of the different aspects of brain injury. The theme this year is ‘On a good day’ which aims to highlight the fluctuating and unpredictable nature of brain injury and the gap that can arise between someone’s capabilities on a good day versus a bad day. Headway wants people to see both sides of the story. It seeks to change behaviours and opinions towards those who might be having an ‘all-too-common bad day’.
New research suggests that UK cancer cases have risen in women but fallen in men. Women’s cancers include gynaecological cancer (i.e. cervical, ovarian and vaginal cancers) and breast cancer. Here I look at the impacts of delays in diagnosis and treatment failures, provide some guidance on bringing a medical negligence claim and consider why there is hope for the future with new technologies.
A lack of awareness and understanding appears to exist when it comes to women’s reproductive health conditions, and the diagnosis and treatment of hysterectomies is no exception to this.
In this blog we will be discussing where negligence can occur in relation to the treatment of hysterectomies, from initial misdiagnoses to surgical errors.
Endometriosis and Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) are two conditions which affect a large number of women every year, and can have devastating effects on fertility and well-being, but frustratingly continue to experience long delays in diagnosis.
As a lawyer specialising in women’s health claims, I am increasingly concerned about the challenges facing those seeking access to care for issues around gynaecology and reproductive health. Problems in this area are rife. They include very long waiting times, delays in diagnosis, a lack of understanding by some medical professionals, instances of discrimination as well as women reporting feelings of being dismissed.
We welcome views and opinions about the issues raised in this blog. Should you require specific advice in relation to personal circumstances, please use the form on the contact page.
Or call +44 (0)20 7814 1200
Imogen Roberts
Sharon Burkill
Jenny Higgins
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