In answer to parliamentary question I tabled, the Government has confirmed that over £13 billion has been paid out in clinical negligence claims over the past 10 years and Minister admits that the “claims are eating progressively into resources available for front line care.”
These are staggering, astronomical, sums of money, literally billions of pounds, being sucked out of the National Health Service.
The Government should urgently undertake a deep and searching analysis of why so much money is being used as compensation.
We need to be far more systematic in combating and rooting out the causes of negligence and never accept a compensation culture as a substitute for eradicating negligence. Every pound paid out in claims is money that could be used for more nurses, doctors, operations, and treatments.
