MILLIONS of pounds in compensation has been paid to victims of medical blunders that occurred within hospitals in Cumbria in the last five years - including hundreds of thousands for incidents stretching back more than 20 years.

New data shows more than £11 million was handed over between 2012 and 2017 for medical mistakes made within the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust - the organisation that runs Barrow's Furness General Hospital.


Furness General Hospital Of this, £161,899 was for incidents that took place before 1995.

North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary as well as the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven, paid £9.4 million in compensation claims over the same period.

This figure includes £29,091 for cases prior to 1995 - all of which relate to maternity failures.
Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle.

The amounts, shared with CN Group by the BBC, are part of the £152 million compensation bill paid by the Department of Health to victims of clinical negligence in England from two decades ago through the Existing Liabilities Scheme.

This figure has quadrupled in the last ten years as the families of those affected by clinical mistakes continue to receive payments to cover ongoing care costs for their loved ones.

Experts are now warning the sum could continue to spiral upwards following a government ruling last year that agreed lumps-sum damages payments should be larger from March 2017 onwards to compensate victims for low interest rates.

What do hospital bosses say?

Mary Aubrey, director of governance, at UHMBT, said acting now to prevent mistakes from being repeated in the future was vital.
Director of Governance UHMBT Mary Aubrey.

"When things go wrong, it is important that patients and their families are listened to, that we recognise their concerns, apologise for any suffering caused, and act to prevent repeated mistakes.

"It is also right that people receive compensation and financial support when mistakes have had a serious effect on their lives."

Payments for historical cases - those that occurred before 1995 - are paid by the Department of Health.

But claims for cases after that date are settled through the NHS Litigation Authority which acts as an insurance scheme for hospital and ambulance trusts.

Each organisation pays a premium based on a range of factors including the expected payout for the following year and whether or not it provides maternity services.

But as compensation payouts rise, so too do the annual contributions into the scheme.

For the first time, hospital trusts are to be offered an incentive by the litigation authority if they can show they have implemented the ten maternity safety recommendations published in the National Maternity Strategy.

Maurya Cushlow, executive director of nursing and midwifery at NCUHT, said: "We always strive to provide safe and high quality care to our patients.


Maurya Cushlow "Unfortunately on some occasions, mistakes can be made and when that happens we always fully investigate what has happened and share the learning across our teams in order to prevent a similar incident from happening again.

"When mistakes do occur, it is important that people receive appropriate levels of compensation and support."

What about the victims of hospital mistakes?

Angela Curran is one of the country's leading medical negligence lawyers.

Based in Cumbria, as head of the medical negligence and serious injury department at law firm Burnetts, she helped secure damages of £34.4 million birth injury claims alone in 2017 - with some cases dating back decades.
Angela Curran, head of medical negligence at Burnetts

Ms Curran told CN Group it was only right that victims were compensated to fund the care they would need for the rest of their lives.

"One of the eight cases I have settled this year was for a 50 year old man from a Cumbrian family who had suffered serious injuries at his birth," she said.

"The issues with maternity services are not new - I see the same failings recurring again and again: fetal heart rates incorrectly measured or recorded; delays in emergency caesareans; and delays in midwives requesting help from consultants.

"A damages payment to a severely disabled person is the very least we, as a society, should be doing to look after someone who has been injured as a result of mistakes made by a state-run hospital.

"These settlements are not lottery wins – the damages payments are carefully calculated with every penny claimed being scrutinised and justified - it can cost a family more than £200,000 a year to look after a child who has suffered serious injuries at birth and the lifetime cost of that 24-hour expert care can be many millions of pounds."

Ms Curran added: "Usually the settlement is paid in installments into the Court of Protection and families draw down funds for the specific purpose of care."

Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, said families affected by clinical negligence, particularly in birth injuries, simply had to pursue claims against the NHS in order to afford the care their child would need.

But he warned: "We as a charity have been going for 35 years and we still see the same mistakes, the same avoidable errors causing injury now as we did 35 years ago.

"One common thing in terms of mistakes made during childbirth are failures to read CTG traces correctly and respond to them.

"It is a very important tool that helps professionals realise when the baby is under too much stress and there are problems with their heart rate.

"We see these problems occurring again and again. It is time the NHS had consistent high-quality training for midwives and for doctors to ensure they are able to recognise the complications."

What about the Department of Health?

A number of measures designed to reduce the number of clinical mistakes that occur in the NHS are being implemented, officials have stated, while an upper limit on legal costs attached to legal cases is also being considered.


Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire Also, independent investigations to find out what went wrong will be offered to families who suffer stillbirth or life-long injuries to their babies during their maternity care.

A spokesman for the Department of Health, headed by health and social care secretary of state Jeremy Hunt, said: "Our relentless drive to improve patient safety, including an ambition to halve the rates of neonatal deaths, stillbirths, maternal deaths and brain injuries caused during or shortly after labour by 2025, will help to reduce traumatic and costly safety failings in the NHS and ensure better protection for patients."

What's happening in Cumbria?

Claims for victims of birth injuries and poor maternity care have been increasing in south Cumbria over the last decade following failings at Furness General Hospital between 2004 and 2013.

But women across the area are soon to give birth in a new £13 million state of the art maternity unit - built after the existing one was deemed not fit for purpose in the Morecambe Bay Investigation Report.
The brand new South Lakes Birthing Centre Barrow, LEANNE BOLGER

The unit has a dedicated education facility to ensure staff can train in how to handle emergency situations as well as rare cases on site.

The trust in charge was also among the first in the country to invest in the science of human factors - a safety process used in the aviation and nuclear industries to iron out the potential for mistakes before they occur.


The figures in full:

:: NHS trusts’ historical mistakes have cost £130.8 million over the past five years in damages alone

:: After legal fees were added, the total paid out for those claims was £152.4 million

:: Obstetrics claims made up 71 per cent of this total - £108.1 million

:: Payouts made under the Existing Liabilities Scheme - dealing with incidents that occured before 1995 - rose by 13 per cent last year to £27.7 million.