NHS Scotland paid out £500m in a decade over clinical negligence, Times reports
Victims of botched operations and poor care received more than half a billion pounds from NHS Scotland between 2015 and 2025, according to figures from the Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme reported by The Times.
NHS Scotland paid more than half a billion pounds in compensation to victims of botched operations and poor care between 2015 and 2025, The Times reported, citing figures from the Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS), the insurance scheme covering NHS boards.
Almost £100 million went to victims of “birth injury”, the paper said. Twelve of Scotland’s 14 health boards paid compensation for maternity and obstetric negligence, including cases in which babies developed cerebral palsy or mothers suffered serious injuries or died during childbirth. A separate investigation by The Herald, based on freedom of information data, found the same 12 boards paid a total of £96.2 million over five years to people injured by maternity negligence, solicitors Digby Brown said.
About £85 million of the payouts was swallowed up by legal fees over a six-year period, The Times reported, suggesting the true cost is higher. Campaigners believe the bill could rise substantially after the removal of a time bar on claims that could be brought by hundreds of potential victims of the Tayside neurosurgeon Sam Eljamel.
Miles Briggs, the Scottish Conservative health spokesman, told the paper the number of claims was “staggering” and blamed “year after year of SNP mismanagement, creating a workforce which is overworked and undersupported”.
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