Record rise in babies born with brain damage sees NHS compensation bill soar

The cost of compensating patients seriously harmed by negligent care in the NHS has become "unsustainable", officials have warned.

The NHS Resolution, which handles litigation for the health service, has revealed that this expenditure is "dominated" by the "very high value of claims arising from brain injuries at birth".

Parents made 232 claims against maternity units after newborns suffered cerebral palsy or brain damage in 2016/17 - a 23% rise from the 188 reported a year earlier.

The NHS Resolution's annual report said the total value of these claims was close to £2bn.

It added that the cost of paying for the "complex life-long care needs" often seen in such cases could soon exceed £20m per child.

According to NHS Resolution, the cost and charges associated with compensating affected families "will continue to increase for years, probably decades to come" - and these rises are going to be "unavoidable without significant law reform".

Helen Vernon, chief executive of NHS Resolution, said in the report: "These incidents can have a devastating impact on those involved and we must do everything we can to learn from what happened.

"Like all parts of the NHS, we need to make sure that every penny we spend is value for money for the taxpayer.

"This means making some difficult decisions on delivering compensation only where it is due and ensuring that the NHS is not overcharged for legal costs."

On Saturday, it emerged that the Royal College of Midwives had dropped its campaign encouraging women to give birth naturally.

The campaign, which had been running since 2005, promoted birth without medical intervention such as an emergency caesarean.

Professor Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the college, denied the campaign had compromised safety but said she did not want women to feel they had "failed" if they had not had a normal birth.

The campaign drew criticism after an inquiry into the deaths of 11 babies and one mother at the Morecambe Bay trust between 2004 and 2013.

The inquiry found the desire for natural deliveries at any cost among midwives had contributed to unsafe births.

Peter Walsh, chief executive of the Action Against Medical Accidents charity, told The Daily Telegraph that the 23% increase in claims against maternity units of newborns was alarming.

He told the newspaper: "More research needs to be done to understand what is leading the increase, but moving away from the cult-like fixation with so-called 'normal birth' is a step in the right direction."