Obstetrics consistently accounts for one of the largest shares of both claim numbers and total NHS Resolution damages — a reflection of how catastrophic the consequences can be when things go wrong during labour and delivery, and of how often successive national inquiries have found the same failures recurring. Why Claims Arise in This Area The Shrewsbury and Telford review, the East Kent maternity investigation, and the 2026 Ockenden report into Nottingham's maternity servic

Emergency departments see more patients, under more time pressure, with less background information than almost any other part of the hospital — and that combination makes A&E one of the fastest-growing sources of clinical negligence claims in England and Wales. Why Claims Arise in This Area Emergency medicine claims are shaped as much by system pressure as by any individual clinician's competence: overcrowding, corridor care, and boarding of admitted patients awaiting beds a

The value of the medico-legal market is back above £700m for the first time since 2019 amid concerns about a shrinking pool of experts, research has found. IRN Legal Reports predicted that, although the total number of personal injury claims would continue to fall, the larger medico-legal players were “in a relatively good position to maintain growth” and would “gain the most” from the spread of AI. It estimated that the overall value of the medico-legal market last year was

HMRC figures show a growing disparity between the pay of family doctors who own their practice and salaried GPs Hundreds of family doctors are earning at least £300,000 a year from the NHS, their take-home pay having increased by more than 20 per cent in real terms over the past decade. Figures from HM Revenue & Customs show that one in ten GPs who run their own practice are paid at least a quarter of a million pounds a year, while one in 20 earn more than £300,000. That f

The “justice gap” for personal injury victims is “dramatically widening” and 2.3m people every year are increasingly unlikely to seek redress, a report has found. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) said 44% of negligence victims did not claim compensation and only a fifth approached a personal injury lawyer. Researchers estimated that a total of 7.5m negligence victims had “never claimed compensation”. When it came to road traffic accidents, casualties had incr

A foreign doctor who bungled an operation so severely it was described as "not compatible with life" has been struck off the medical register. Dr Yasser Adly Abdel Rahman, an NHS locum surgeon, performed the emergency bowel procedure on a young man but botched the operation. This resulted in the contents of the patient's bowel, leaving his stomach, being re-deposited back into his stomach through a circular "closed loop", the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hear

A patient died and “lasting, real harm” was caused to more than 100 people due to poor reading of heart scans by a former Derby doctor over seven years. On top of this, more than 361 patients encountered potential low harm and a further 379 patients faced failures over their cardiac scans. The University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust has issued an “unreserved apology” for the issues, detailing “deep regret” and saying it is “very sorry this has happened”,

NHS spending on claimant legal costs was static last year, even though the costs of low-value cases continue to rise sharply. The annual report of NHS Resolution (NHSR) showed that a record 84% of clinical negligence claims were resolved without the need for proceedings, which it said demonstrated the impact of the first year of its ‘Resolution Through Collaboration’ strategy. The strategy focuses on delivering “fairer resolution”, using data to drive learning, and strengthen

Faye Condon was wrongly diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease aged five and given gruelling chemotherapy - then seven years later the NHS discovered it got it wrong. A child has been wrongly given six cycles of chemotherapy after being misdiagnosed by the NHS. Faye Condon, 12, was wrongly diagnosed with the rare autoimmune disease Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JDM) aged five in a mistake mum Christina says “ruined her whole childhood”. Christina was not convinced by the diagno

Introduction The shoulder is one of the most complex and functionally demanding joints in the human body. Its exceptional range of motion comes at the cost of relative instability, making it vulnerable to a wide spectrum of injuries and degenerative conditions. An estimated 7% of the UK population suffer from shoulder pain, and there were 58,169 hospital admissions for shoulder and upper arm injuries in 2022–23 alone. Given this prevalence, shoulder conditions feature promine

Background The findings of the independent maternity review into services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), published in June 2026, represent the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history. The review was commissioned in 2022 by NHS England. Its origins lay with a group of bereaved families who refused to stay silent — among them, a baby who died just before birth in April 2016, whose death was later confirmed as avoidable following poor care her mother receiv

Medical negligence lawyers say they stand ready to help address the wider issues raised in the latest devastating report on maternity care failings. A report by senior midwife Donna Ockenden following the largest maternity review in NHS history found that more than 500 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or died from ‘systemic failings’ at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. The review examined cases between 2012 and 2025 and concluded that different

defence firm has helped to see off a record-breaking £4m case which was based on fabricated and exaggerated claims of life-changing injuries. The personal injury claim was made to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau following a 2017 incident in which a motorcyclist fell after being forced to avoid an untraced car in his path. The unnamed claimant received nearly £190,000 in interim payments before analysis of his social media activity posts, surveillance and expert evidence showed he

The Government must not lose sight of the value of injury claims to society and the economy as it considers reform to tackle NHS spending on negligence, APIL’s new president warns. “Claims for redress are all too often viewed by policymakers as a financial burden, when in reality it is evident that supporting injured victims of negligence is an economic enabler,” said Guy Forster, who took the helm at APIL on Thursday (14 May). “Access to justice and fair compensation enables

A TV producer was left permanently disabled after bungling paramedics "pressed the wrong button" on a defibrillator during a cardiac arrest. Meg Fozzard now lives with lasting disabilities after her brain was deprived of oxygen when ambulance crews delayed a potentially life-saving electric shock by eight critical minutes, having failed to operate a defibrillator correctly. Meg has since won an undisclosed settlement following legal action against the NHS. The producer - just

Clinical negligence lawyers have urged the government not to be swayed by suggestions that they are to blame for soaring costs. Sharon Allison, chair of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers, said policymakers should give more time to the ongoing efforts to collaborate with defence representatives, rather than rushing into a counter productive reform spree. The government has said it will decide in the autumn whether to pursue fixed recoverable costs for lower value claims a

If AI is involved in a medical error, who should be held accountable: the clinician or developer? Surgeons, lawyers, and forensic experts have addressed this question, which is expected to become more pressing in the coming years. Experts converged on a key point: chatbots and other decision support tools are linked to adverse events. The central issue is whether negligence has occurred, and if so, who bears responsibility. However, this question remains complex. AI is reshap

The government's plan for bringing down the multi-billion-pound clinical negligence costs bill will be revealed this autumn, the Treasury has said. According to the Treasury's response to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on clinical negligence, the government accepts the basic premise that the Department of Health and Social Care has failed to tackle rising costs despite repeated warnings. The Treasury said it will write to the committee by this autumn to set out

A deeply moving new short film lays bare the life-changing impact that the law on personal injury compensation can have for families whose lives are torn apart by negligence. Kayleigh and her 11-year-old son Charlie, who suffered a significant hypoxic brain injury at birth and has cerebral palsy affecting all four limbs, are the focus of the public awareness film for APIL’s Rebuilding Shattered Lives campaign. “Shining a spotlight on a clinical negligence case like Charlie

The campaign to retain the presumption that personal injury compensation should pay for private healthcare faces a new battle front, with legislation on the table to reform the status quo. A private member's bill was laid in the Commons last week by Labour's Catherine McKinnell to amend the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, which has been in force since 1948. The measure entitles claimants to recover the cost of private medical treatment, providing it is proportionate and n