How does the Welsh Government intend to reduce the burden of clinical negligence payouts on NHS Wales?
The clinical negligence litigation profile has risen, with legal costs increasing more quickly than the headline rate of inflation – as it has in all parts of the UK
The Welsh Risk Pool operates a number of learning and prevention programmes, which include supporting NHS organisations to identify the causal factors of each and every clinical negligence claim and to establish suitable measures, while sharing learning among all health bodies in Wales. This provides a national resource to ensure lessons are identified and improvements are implemented within the service where the claim originated and more widely across the NHS in Wales.
Recent initiatives coordinated by the Welsh Risk Pool include the PROMPT Wales programme, which has demonstrated an improvement in clinical outcome measures for babies and a reduction in harm to mothers in maternity services.