Search: NHS negligence payments
The NHS is expected to pay out more than £700 million in clinical negligence payments next year, the Conservative Party said.
The rise to £713 million is almost double this year's bill of £396 million and will take up almost a third of the additional funding hospitals will receive.
Shadow Health Minister Mark Simmonds said the current "inefficient system" incurred "vast legal costs" for NHS Trusts.
The Tories also said all the extra funding the Government has allocated to maternity services would need to be diverted away from the labour wards to pay for increased premiums for negligence claims which are expected to come to £119 million in that department alone.
"We need a robust and fair way for patients who have received negligent treatment in an NHS hospital to get the compensation they deserve," Mr Simmonds said.
"Instead, we have an inefficient system which incurs vast legal costs for NHS Trusts involved in legal battles."
He added that Conservative proposals during the passage of the NHS Redress Bill three years ago would have enabled more cases to be resolved without "costly litigation".
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"But the Government missed this opportunity and as a result hospitals will now have less money to spend on patient care," Mr Simmonds said.
A Department of Health spokesman said next year's figure was "substantially higher" than previous years because of the delayed settlement of more than 100 high-value cases and insisted there was "no black hole".
"The anticipated increase in clinical negligence payments for 2009/10 has been fully funded," he said.
