North-east suffers double amount of death and disability from medical negligence than London
A depressing report out of Imperial College London identifies a stark north/south divide when it comes to the impact of medical negligence on people's lives.
The study by academic surgeon Prof Lord Ara Darzi, commissioned by the Labour government when it came to power, identifies a general decline in the safety of patient care by the NHS over two years.
The report was used to warn the Prime Minister that his promises to reform the NHS will take longer than one Parliamentary term.
It identified that errors in the past two years had caused 820 preventable death a year and that the north of England has the highest proportion of NHS trusts where more than expected patient deaths occur.
The proportion of trusts in the north where these fatalities occur rose from 8 per cent two years ago to 14 per cent, which is one in seven NHS trusts.
On top of this, rates of death and disability caused by a negligent procedure or other care are twice as high in the north-east than in London.
And the bad news does not end there. Lord Darzi said there had been an 'alarming decline' in 12 key metrics of patient safety in England since 2022, including maternity care.
The rates of stillbirth are actually growing as are the number of babies dying during or soon after they are born and women dying during labour, despite the previous government's repeated promises to better fund NHS maternity care.
What is also extremely concerning is that the NHS performance is declining compared to the best-performing OECD countries over deaths from treatable causes, such as sepsis and blood clots.
The UK currently ranks with the US, Japan, Germany and France as the largest OECD economies and should be expected to rank high in standards of healthcare but appears to be failing.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, the Parliamentary NHS ombudsman, said: “I am still seeing a rise in investigations about maternity care, which suggests that despite considerable investment and reviews into service failings, things are far from improving.
“There have been successive inquiries and reports into maternity care and sadly no real change. The safety and wellbeing of women is being put at risk due to the same mistakes being made.”
She added a “defensive NHS leadership and culture sadly surfacing time and time again in our own investigations” suggests that NHS bosses do not take lessons onboard when errors occur.
This damning report will provide little comfort for many of our clients who pursue medical negligence claims following severe injuries, often as their only way to finding the truth behind what happened to cause such terrible events.
Read more about our medical negligence claims and hear from clients.