Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patient safety incidents involving multiple pregnancies occurred in each of the last five years; and what total amount was paid by the NHS as a result of litigation relating to such incidents.

The table on patient safety incidents illustrates the number of incidents reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) from England and Wales where the incident report contained keywords indicating multiple pregnancies (the inclusion of these keywords may not always indicate the incident directly affected a multiple pregnancy for example, reference in the incident report may be made to previous pregnancies. The harm reported may relate to the mother or to one or more foetuses/infants). The incidents recorded were reported as occurring from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2014 (if the incident had been uploaded to the NRLS by 30 April 2015).

Patient safety incidents with keywords indicating multiple pregnancies

Source: NHS England

Date: June 2015

The table on NHS Litigation (NHS LA) shows payments made on obstetrics claims where twins or triplets are mentioned in the incident details as at 31 May 2015.

The table shows cases involving twins and triplets, and the data has been extracted using the term ‘multiple birth’. In addition, there can often be a time lag of several years between an incident and a claim and therefore the figures in the table above may be understated.

NHS LA payments made on obstetrics claims involving twins and triplets

Source: NHS LA

Date: June 2015