The balance sheet provisions of NHS Resolution for secondary care now stand at £82.8 billion, a slight decrease on the previous year’s equivalent figure.
NHS Resolution’s report and accounts for 2019/20 pinpointed to reductions in expected future claims inflation as the reason for the fall, from £83.4 billion.
Other positive trends include a continued reduction in court proceedings and a decline in average claimant legal costs.
While new clinical negligence claims increased by 9.35%, this is against a backdrop of increased NHS activity and increased numbers of incidents being reported, such as those arising from mesh.
Claims for serious injuries at birth have shown small declines for three successive years and are now at their lowest level for more than 10 years.
Maternity continues to dominate claims costs, however, with continuing increases in claims values, representing almost 70% of the cost of harm.
The early notification scheme, implemented in 2017 and requiring all NHS trusts to report within 30 days maternity incidents of potentially severe brain injury, resulted in early admissions of liability being given to 24 families within 18 months of the birth, according to results released last year.
Effective partnership working, in maternity, general practice and across the healthcare and justice systems is described in NHS Resolition’s annual report as a feature of the year and is key to its strategy to resolve cases fairly and learning from harm.
NHS Resolution has noted a shift in how mediation is viewed by the cl