Category: John Tingle

The Rising Cost of Clinical Negligence: Who Pays the Price?

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By John Tingle

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) have recently published a report arguing that the rising costs of clinical negligence needs to be urgently controlled. They state that the NHS is struggling under the increasing burden of clinical negligence costs and suggest some reforms.The report is detailed and thorough and raises some good and interesting points but in reading it, it should be remembered that there is also a very good contrary position that can be advanced by those who act for patients in clinical negligence litigation. This report puts the issues to test.

The Report

The report begins by looking at the increasing costs of clinical negligence claims. Costs have increased over the years and the figures are stark. The report quotes figures from NHS Resolution, the new name for the NHS LA (National Health Service Litigation Authority) who estimates that the provision for future clinical negligence costs, relating to claims arising from incidents that have already occurred, stands at £56.1 billion:

“Expenditure on clinical claims by NHS Resolution increased by 72% (11.5% a year on average) over the five years to 2015/16. Should this trend continue it risks becoming wholly unsustainable for the NHS and wider society, which ultimately pays for these cost. Last year alone, nearly £1.5billion was spent and, put into context, this equates to the cost of training over 6,500 new doctors.(p4).” Read More

Making Health Care Safer: What Good Looks Like

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It’s fair to say that patient safety and health quality reports in recent years have tended to focus on what is going wrong in the NHS and what needs to be done to put things right.We have had some dramatic health care systems failures which have resulted in unnecessary deaths of patients.The naming and shaming of errant health care providers has taken place and we have now through the CQC (Care Quality Commission), a much more open, stronger, intelligent and transparent way of regulating health care quality than we have ever had before.

The health care regulatory system does seem to be making a positive difference to NHS care judging from recent CQC reports with some good examples of health quality and safe care practices taking place. Other trusts can learn from these practices.

The CQC have just published a report which includes several case studies illustrating some of the qualities shown by care providers that are rated good or outstanding overall. These hospitals known as hospital trusts in the NHS have been on a journey of improvement some going from special measures to good (CQC inspection ratings). The views of some of the people involved in the care improvement initiatives are stated in the case studies revealing important insights on improvement strategies and the nature of the problems overcome. Read More

WHO: Global Patient Safety Leadership

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By John Tingle

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has just produced a very informative and helpful report on the need to view patient safety as a global concern and to highlight resources that they have made available to deal with the problem and those in development. Patient safety is a fundamental principle of health care and this is fully acknowledged in the report. The report begins by quoting several facts and figures which emphasize the fact that medical errors should be regarded as a matter of acute global concern:

“According to a new study, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. In the United Kingdom, recent estimations show that on average, one incident of patient harm is reported every 35 seconds. Similarly, in low- and middle income countries, a combination of numerous unfavourable factors such as understaffing, inadequate structures and overcrowding, lack of health care commodities and shortage of basic equipment, and poor hygiene and sanitation, contribute to unsafe patient care (p1).”

Approximately two-thirds of all adverse health events happen in low-and middle-income countries. Fifteen per cent of hospital expenditure in Europe can be attributed to treating patient safety accidents. Read More

Patient Safety in the NHS: The Culture Change Agents

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By John Tingle and Jen Minford 

It is important to take a broad holistic approach when looking at patient safety policy development and practice in the NHS. There cannot be a one size fits all approach and a number of possibly quite disparate organisations and stakeholders in the NHS and beyond must be consulted and involved so that effective and positive culture change takes place.

The  CQC (Care Quality Commission) is a major patient safety culture change agent whose job is to ensure that health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care. The CQC encourages care service providers to be on an upward trajectory of improvement. They have recently produced a report to analyse what impact they have on quality and improvement in health and social care. The report provides evidence that the CQC is having a significantly positive impact  on regulating care and ensuring good standards.

A majority of new providers and registered managers responding to a CQC survey said that their guidance and standards are clear. The CQC approach to regulation and their standards have an influence on how some providers measure their own quality. CQC inspection reports were also said to be useful. Read More

Advancing the Global Patient Safety Agenda

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By John Tingle and Jen Minford

All too often it seems that patient safety and health quality policy makers work in their own silos unaware of what is taking place in other countries, wasting valuable resources by trying to re-invent the wheel. There is a clear need to have a way of cascading the news down on what is happening in patient safety globally. Developing and transitioning countries do not always have the resources to build up patient safety infrastructures, tools and policies and letting them know about initiatives going on in other countries fulfils a very important global public health need.

There is also the concept of ‘reverse innovation’.  Developed countries’ patient safety practices and policies can be informed by the experiences of developing and transitioning countries who may be using them in a different and novel way. Patient safety learning can be a two-way street. Read More

The Economics of Patient Safety: Adopting a Value-based Approach

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By John Tingle

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) have recently published a report on the economics of patient safety.The report is in two main sections, section 1, the cost of failure and section 2, reducing harm effectively and efficiently.

Section 1 focuses on a review of the literature in the area. The reports begins by making the point that health care has always been and continues to be, a risk-laden activity:

“While modern medical sciences can certainly do more, the risks of complication, error and harm are commensurately greater.” (p.9)

The report states that adverse health care events can happen at any point of the patient’s journey and can vary between care settings. Similar causative factors can be attributed to most types of harm.On the world patient safety stage, the report states that despite global efforts to reduce the burden of patient harm in developing countries, the situation does not appear to have changed over the past 15 years. WHO data is cited from 2000 which indicates that two –thirds of all adverse events occurred in low-and middle income countries. The risk of patient death as a result of an adverse event appears to be much higher in developing countries with some estimates suggesting that as many as one in three adverse events result in the patient’s death. The report does suggest some ways forward in avoiding adverse health care events in developing countries. Read More

Reforming the approach to clinical negligence in the National Health Service (NHS)

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By John Tingle

The Department of Health in England  have just published a consultation paper on the Governments proposal to introduce a Rapid Resolution and Redress Scheme (RRR) – a voluntary administrative compensation scheme for families affected by severe avoidable birth injury. Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) the UK charity for patient safety and justice cautiously welcomes the stated intentions of the scheme but state that more thought needs to be given to the proposals. There needs to be more detail of the scheme and  some serious concerns are expressed.

The case for change

There are central three policy objectives behind the (RRR) scheme:

  • Reducing the number of severe avoidable birth injuries by encouraging a learning culture.
  • Improving the experience of families and clinicians when harm has occurred; and
  • Making more effective use of NHS resources.

In the consultation paper, a leading policy justification for the (RRR) scheme is the success of a Swedish initiative called, ‘The Safe Delivery Care Project’ which shows evidence of a reduction of claims for severe neurological birth injury. Read More

The National Health Service (NHS) in England is standing on a burning platform?

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By John Tingle

In the introduction to a new report on the state of acute hospitals in the NHS in England, the Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) controversially states:

“The NHS stands on a burning platform — the model of acute care that worked well when the NHS was established is no longer capable of delivering the care that today’s population needs. The need for change is clear, but finding the resources and energy to deliver change while simultaneously providing safe patient care can seem near impossible.” (p.4)

This statement raises the fundamental question of whether the current model of the NHS is,’ fit for purpose’? The NHS since its formation has always had both a good and bad press. Since its inception it always been short of resources. Changing times bring with them new demands which can make established health care delivery structures obsolete and no longer capable of delivering optimal performance. One important NHS developing health care trend is the need to keep pace with a growing elderly population with more complex health needs along with other trends. Read More

NHS patient care and treatment errors: developing a learning culture.

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By John Tingle

PACAC, the House of Commons, (Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee) has just published its analysis of the PHSO’s, (Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman ) second report into the tragic death of Sam Morrish, a three year old child whose death from sepsis was found to have been avoidable. PACAC  is composed of MP’s (Members of Parliament) and its remit includes considering matters relating to the quality and standards of administration provided by civil service departments which includes the Department of Health. PACAC also examines the reports of the PHSO.

The PACAC report is very thorough and detailed and really gets to grips with the issues surrounding NHS (National Health Service) health adverse incident investigation. It addresses very clearly the current challenges and opportunities in this area and puts forward some major concerns which need to be fully addressed by the NHS before it can be said to have a listening and learning culture. It is clear from reading the report that the NHS has a very long way to go before it can be said to be even close to reaching its listening and learning culture attainment goal.

The PACAC report also identifies what could be regarded as some muddled thinking by the Department of Health on the concept of the ‘safe space’ in NHS investigations and identifies some important patient safety policy gaps.

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The High Cost of Clinical Negligence Claims

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By John Tingle

In the UK, the Department of Health (DH) have just published a consultation paper on introducing fixed recoverable costs in lower value clinical negligence claims. The document contains some controversial proposals which many claimant, patient lawyers are very concerned about. They feel the proposals will make it much harder for patients with lower value claims to find a solicitor to fight their case .The publication of the consultation paper comes in the wake of criticism that some clinical negligence claimant lawyers, solicitor firms , make excessive and unreasonable costs demands. The NHS LA (The National Health Service Litigation Authority) which manages negligence and other claims against the NHS in England states:

“Claimant costs for lower value claims are disproportionate and excessive. For claims where compensation is less than £10,000, claimant lawyers recover almost three times more in costs on average.”(p.10)

The DH Consultation Paper begins by stating the annual cost of clinical negligence in the NHS. It has risen from £1.2bn in 2014/15 to £1.5bn in 2015/2016.Legal costs were 34% of the 2015/16 expenditure.The consultation paper states that the current system of claims resolution is often lengthy and adversarial. This creates what can be termed a dual problem. Delaying possible learning of lessons from incidents and also escalating the costs of litigation when claims are brought. Read More