Statistical press release - Clinical/Social Care Negligence Cases in Northern Ireland (2014/15)

Date published: 18 November 2015

The statistical bulletin presents information on clinical/social care negligence cases that were open at any stage during the year ending 31 March 2015.

Key Points

The key findings presented in the statistics release are listed below.

Payments in 2014/15:

• during 2014/15, £41.4 million was paid on clinical/social care negligence cases in Northern Ireland (Figure 1, Table 1)

Payments to Date:

• during 2014/15, 3,601 clinical/social care negligence cases were open at any stage, an increase of 366 (11.3%), from 3,235 during 2010/11 (Table 2)
• in 2014/15, 752 new cases were opened, 689 cases were closed, whilst 2,721 cases remained open and 191 cases had been settled at 31st March 2015 (Figure 3, Tables 3 - 7)
• the average clinical/social care negligence case open in 2014/15 had been open for 2.6 years (Figure 5)
• over half (56.0%, 2,016) of all clinical/social care negligence cases referred to the following four specialties; ‘Obstetrics’ (626), ‘Accident & Emergency’ (623), ‘General Surgery’ (384) and ‘Trauma and Orthopaedics’ (383) (Table 12)
• a total of £96.6 million has been paid to date on the 3,601 clinical/social care negligence cases which were open at any stage during 2014/15. Of which, almost £73.8 million (76.4%) has been awarded in damages and £22.7 million (23.6%) paid out in legal costs (defence and plaintiff) (Table 13)
• over half (51.8%, £50.0m) of the amount paid out on clinical/social care negligence cases open at any stage during 2014/15 referred to the ‘Obstetrics’ speciality, of which, over four fifths (82.0%, £41.0m) had been paid on damages (Table 14)
• Clinical negligence case NI 2015-15