Medical negligence in the NHS: planned spend vs actual spend
Every department of the NHS requires funding to run. From medication to social care, in order for everything to operate smoothly, certain budgets are allocated to each area every year.
It’s essential that each department gets the necessary funding, but does the National Health Service manage to adhere to its budget? Or is there frequent over or underspending?
What does the data tell us?
From a recent study carried out by the NHS, we can see that there is a difference between planned spend and actual spend when it comes to clinical negligence insurance.
Looking back at the twelve months of 2018 vs 2019, it’s evident that there was an underspend of £37 million when it comes to this area, despite there being a rising activity of clinical negligence claims. This had a planned spend of over £2 billion, but had an actual spend of £1,996,000,000. Why might this be?
What may be some of the reasons for the underspend?
One of the reasons that the NHS may have experienced an underspend in this area is because they are now mediating more clinical negligence cases than ever before.
Our National Health Service are on a mission to encourage other forms of alternative dispute resolution in order to reduce the number of claims going into formal court proceedings. Not only does this help to reduce stress on both parties, it provides everyone with the chance to explore what happened in further detail.
The NHS also does everything it can to learn from what goes wrong. The underspend could also be a result of better-quality training and more skilled staff.
What is medical negligence?
Medical negligence occurs when a patient has received below the usual or required standard of care by a healthcare provider such as a doctor, nurse, GP, midwife or pharmacist. Those that are treating you are trusted to provide you with the best care possible.
What should you do if you are medically neglected?
If a medical professional has failed you, it’s important that you contact specialists in this field to see if you have a claim. This can be anything from misdiagnosis and delays to surgical and anaesthetic errors.
These specialists are always on hand to provide you with any support that you may need and will be able to conclude whether or not you will be entitled to compensation.
Photo by Zach Vessels
