Clinical negligence claims for injuries sustained in childbirth have cost the NHS nearly £3.5bn over the past six years, The i Paper can reveal.
The vast majority of that amount – around £2.9bn – was paid out in damages, while the remaining amount covered NHS and families’ legal costs, documents obtained through Freedom of Information (FoI) laws show.
Damages and legal costs worth £3.43bn were paid out across 3,646 clinical negligence claims relating to obstetrics services in England between 2019/20 and 2024/25, the figures show.
Annual damages payouts increased by 26 per cent during that period, from £495.5m in 2019/20 to £625.8m in 2024/25.
The average value of damages paid out over the six-year period was more than £940,000, but NHS officials said this was inflated by a small number of multi-million-pound payouts related to brain injuries.
