Written question asked by Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat) on Friday, 5 December 2014, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 9 December 2014. It was answered by Dan Poulter (Conservative) on Monday, 15 December 2014 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Multiple Births

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the (a) number of cases and (b) total cost of settling the claims dealt with by the NHS Litigation Authority involving the still birth, neonatal death or disability of a baby or the disability of the mother or maternal death as a result of a multiple pregnancy in each of the last 10 years.

Answer

Information on the number of obstetrics claims received between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2014 which have involved a multiple pregnancy are set out in the following tables.

Claims not settled as a periodic payment order as at 30 November 2014:

NHSLA Notification Year	No. of Claims	Damages Paid	Defence Costs Paid	Claimant Costs Paid	Total Paid
04/05	17	257,685	160,195	199,703	617,583
05/06	25	2,230,500	247,739	503,085	2,981,324
06/07	26	3,421,731	160,890	441,675	4,024,296
07/08	25	2,049,637	409,877	750,189	3,209,702
08/09	17	2,273,298	314,113	858,335	3,445,746
09/10	32	3,505,555	472,978	906,368	4,884,900
10/11	26	2,231,560	218,757	761,800	3,212,117
11/12	18	1,702,994	252,423	403,170	2,358,587
12/13	27	1,992,742	299,511	396,250	2,688,503
13/14	33	79,250	130,803	35,115	245,168
Total	246	19,744,952	2,667,285	5,255,690	27,667,927

Source: NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) December 2014

Claims settled as a periodic payment order as at 30 November 2014:

NHSLA Notification Year	No. of Claims	O/S Damages	Damages Paid	Total Damages	Defence Costs Paid	Claimant Costs Paid	Total
05/06	5	18,259,347	15,421,817	33,681,164	620,036	1,818,621	36,119,820
06/07	1	2,669,629	2,660,371	5,330,000	83,570	290,550	5,704,120
07/08	1	3,332,805	2,370,195	5,703,000	112,109	190,000	6,005,109
08/09	1	4,109,000	3,005,000	7,114,000	86,046	184,000	7,384,046
09/10	2	11,717,657	6,854,249	18,571,906	186,503	506,000	19,264,409
Total	10	40,088,438	30,311,632	70,400,070	1,088,264	2,989,171	74,477,504

Source: NHS LA December 2014

‘Payments’ made in those years requested are not specifically going to be the payments made on the claims reported in the same period i.e. some will relate to claims which had been reported to the NHSLA prior to the ten year period requested here.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 217336
Session: 2014-15
Related items: Multiple Births
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Written questions
House of Commons; Multiple Births
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects: NHS Litigation Authority Multiple births
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Multiple Births

Secondary information

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