Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the costs of clinical negligence.

In 2017, the National Audit Office identified three areas of rising clinical negligence costs over the previous decade: claim volume, compensation awards and claimant legal costs. However, since then claim volume and claimant legal costs have levelled out, but overall costs have continued to increase due to payments for compensation.

The Department is therefore working with the Ministry of Justice, other Government departments and NHS Resolution to address these issues. This is a complex area and the work is ongoing. In the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed to publishing a consultation.