NHS Reports Increase in Medical Negligence Claims

The NHS Resolution Annual Report and Accounts for the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 were recently presented to Parliament. They show some interesting and important trends.

In 2024/25, the NHS received 14,428 claims and paid out £3.1 billion in compensation and associated costs on all their clinical schemes, of which £620.9 million was claimant’s legal costs.

One of the most notable trends has been a significant increase in the proportion of claims settled out of court: in 2024/25, it was 83%, compared to 66% in 2016/17. In fact, in 2024/25 only 45 claims were actually litigated to trial and in 60% of those cases the court awarded no damages (compared with 66% in 2023/24).

The average claimant’s legal costs for damages from £25,001 to £100,00 were £55,767, up slightly over the 2023/24 figure of £54,978.

The top three categories of clinical negligence claims remain emergency medicine, obstetrics and orthopaedic surgery.