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Childbirth and maternity failures cost NHS £27m a year in compensation
Ellen Widdup and Sophie Goodchild18 Aug 2009
Poor maternity care in London is costing the NHS almost £27 million a year.
Health trusts across the capital are paying out hundreds of thousands of pounds to families whose loved ones have died in childbirth and to women who have been badly treated.
Women have also sued London hospitals successfully in cases where negligent doctors have left children severely disabled with brain damage, cerebral palsy or developmental delay.
Figures obtained by the Standard reveal that payouts to women treated on obstetric wards account for more than a third of the NHS compensation bill for the capital.
Concern has been growing over the state of London's maternity care after a series of tragedies, including a mother whose five-day-old baby died after a catalogue of errors at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
Staff failed to spot the baby was upside-down in the womb and used the wrong forceps. The infant was put on a life-support machine but died five days later in October 2006.
Her parents, Ben and Katherine Harman, from Battersea, have been given more than £50,000 in compensation, but said their daughter “could still be alive” if not for the mistakes.
Mrs Harman, 29, said: “How many other people are being robbed of the right to take their babies home because our maternity wards are overcrowded and understaffed?” The hospital has apologised.
The payments also include £600,000 to the family of a woman who died after giving birth. Jessica Palmer, 34, died less than a week after the birth of her daughter Emily at Kingston Hospital in June 2004. Two NHS trusts, Kingston and St George's Healthcare, accepted liability over her death after it was discovered medical staff failed to spot she was suffering from blood poisoning.
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Her husband Ben, from Southfields, is now caring for Emily and their son Harry alone. After being awarded the payout in 2007, Mr Palmer said: “My wife died a horrific death. This should not have happened. My son cries in my arms at night because he misses his mother, my daughter cries in sympathy and because she never knew her mother. I want action to ensure maternity services are improved so no other family has to go through what we have suffered.”
The figures were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. They show that the maternity payout figure of £26,817,256 was included in an overall NHS litigation bill of £73.6 million in London.
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust paid out the most in compensation, settling claims totalling £8.5 million in the financial year 2007/08. More than £4 million of this went to obstetrics patients.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust paid out £8.2 million in compensation — £3.3 million of which went to women treated in maternity wards. The NHS Litigation Authority, which handles claims, received 676 new complaints over the last year which include obstetric cases.
It said individual payments could reach six- or seven-figure sums depending on the severity of the blunder. These include cases involving children left disabled after a botched delivery and who need lifetime care.
In some high-value cases, claims are paid through structured settlements where a claimant receives a regular amount to pay for their care throughout their lives. This means the total value of these settlements is not known until the patient dies.
The NHS Litigation Authority said it was hard to compare how individual trusts perform because of the size of payouts and the number of backdated claims. A spokeswoman said: “Larger trusts and those which provide more complex treatments are more likely to receive claims than smaller trusts or those providing low-risk care.”
