Gwent Health Trust Sees Rise in Negligence Claims

Gwent Healthcare trust has seen the number of medical negligence and personal injury claims made against it rise by a third in 2008, this rise has been described by some in the health care trust as "dramatic".

The new numbers where released by the organisations medical directorate, revealing some of the increase strains the health authority are under.

The rise of claims in the Gwent healthcare trust mirrors a similar picture being painted across Wales; despite the rise many can't seem to pinpoint an exact reason as to why there has been a rise apart from the knock-on effect of increased restrictions in the availability of Legal Aid to fight such cases.

The stats speak for themselves really with the number of claims in the year to March 31, there were 110 clinical negligence and 76 personal injury claims registered against the Gwent trust, the total of 186 being 36 per cent up on that for the 12 months to March 31 2008.

The number of claims being made against the trust is the highest they have been since 2001/02, back then the sharp rises in claims followed new reforms in civil law designed to make the process of making a claim cheaper quicker and easier for people to understand.

No win no fee cases on the rise Regarding last year's increase the Welsh Risk Pool, from which claims against all Welsh NHS trusts are funded, and into which all trusts contribute, states in its annual report that there has been "a rise in the use of conditional fee (no win no fee) agreements to fund clinical negligence cases due to the almost complete withdrawal of Legal Aid, except in cases involving children.

"This means many more High Street practitioners, rather than specialist solicitors, are investigating possible claims against healthcare bodies."

Gwent healthcare bosses have been looking into the reason for the rises, focusing on the number the of medical negligence claims being made in the accident and emergency where there has been a dramatic rise in the number of claims being made against the department.

The figures show that the number of claims made in 2008/09 is 20 up from 9 made in the previous year, it seems health care bosses are determined to find out if there is a specific problem that needs to be dealt with.

A similar exercise was carried out in the trauma and orthopedics departments in which there were 23 cases of medical negligence in 2008/09 up from the 6 made the previous year.

Despite rigorous investigation into the way the departments run there was no obvious reason for the increase in the number of claims being made against them.

If the investigations into the accident and emergency departments fail to turn up an exact reason for the increase in the number of claim then it may just have to be put down and increase in availability of legal aid, and with a new fast track system being trailed in Scotland it could well be even easier to make a medical negligence claim in the not so distant future.