Maternity Services: Finance
(asked on 14th September 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the current annual (1) maternity, and (2) neonatal, budget for NHS England; and how much NHS England has expended annually in clinical negligence compensation for maternity care in each of the past five years.
The annual budget for the NHS England Maternity Programme is £122 million. NHS England does not commission or budget for Maternity Services which is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs). NHS Providers, based on the latest available data which is 2021/22 Reference Costs, spent approximately £4 billion annually on Maternity Services. Neonatal services are commissioned and budgeted for through Specialised Commissioning. The latest available data shows an annual spend for 2023/24 of approximately £1 billion.
NHS Resolution manages clinical negligence and other claims against the National Health Service in England. The following table shows the cost of Clinical Negligence Claims Closed or otherwise Settled as a Periodical Payment Order (PPO) between 2018/19 and 2022/23 with damages paid (including PPOs paid to date), where the Specialty is 'Obstetrics', as advised by NHS Resolution:
Year of Closure of case (Settlement Year for PPOs) | Damages Paid (£) | NHS Legal Costs Paid (£) | Claimant Legal Costs Paid (£) | Total Paid (£) |
2018/19 | 605,688,009 | 25,560,735 | 78,394,471 | 709,643,216 |
2019/20 | 495,458,879 | 22,536,708 | 72,295,468 | 590,291,055 |
2020/21 | 501,965,729 | 22,080,962 | 68,796,850 | 592,843,541 |
2021/22 | 503,741,949 | 21,897,291 | 78,114,994 | 603,754,235 |
2022/23 | 596,598,917 | 25,039,074 | 84,939,593 | 706,577,584 |
Total | 2,703,453,483 | 117,114,772 | 382,541,376 | 3,203,109,631 |