Posted: 14/08/2025
While the majority of clinical negligence claims resolve without the need for court proceedings, so far this year 164 such claims have been issued in the High Court. These claims tend to be high in value or complex in nature. Although detailed information on individual claims is limited, some analysis of the parties involved shows a number of interesting trends, in which certain hospital trusts have notably higher levels of claims issued against them.
Philippa Luscombe, head of the clinical negligence team at Penningtons Manches Cooper, has examined the claims issued to trusts in 2025, both to see if they are indicative of trends, and also whether they reflect the type of claims that the firm is regularly instructed to investigate on a day-to-day basis. For some of her analysis, Philippa used Solomonic, an award-winning and intuitive litigation analytics platform, which is changing the way litigation decisions are made through actionable intelligence.
Of the 164 claims issued this year, 47 of them were against only 14 trusts. In each case, the trust had either three or four claims issued against it – in itself, not a high number, but when compared to the 30+ NHS trusts with only one claim, or the many with no claims at all, it is evident that some trusts stand out in terms of claim frequency.
Philippa’s research revealed that the three trusts featured most prominently were:
NHS trusts in Bristol have been subject to considerable media focus this year on the level of claims being submitted, particularly in relation to medical care provided to children.
One investigation revealed that, combined, the NHS trusts in Bristol have paid out over £66 million in compensation for negligence claims concerning children's medical care since 2019.
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Trust itself was responsible for the settling of 28 claims, for a total cost of over £47 million.
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, another trust featuring prominently as having a number of issued claims, meanwhile, has paid out over £4 million to patients in connection with allegations of medical negligence in A&E cases over the past five years.
Guy’s and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust has recently been the subject of some significant maternity claims, and faced one of the largest maternity negligence claims in the NHS after a £37 million payout in 2020 to the family of a severely disabled child. This claim followed mistakes in the boy's care (admitted by the trust) that left him with lifelong needs. While the trust agreed to the payout, the family reported that it did not initially admit liability, creating pressure on them to cover care costs during the investigation.
Penningtons Manches Cooper's clinical negligence team has a number of ongoing cases against all three of these trusts, and its experience tends to accord with the press reports. The weight of the team's claims against Lewisham and Greenwich has been in relation to A&E/emergency care and, likewise, for University Hospitals Bristol, it has dealt with several claims involving paediatric care. For Guy’s and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, a number of claims are ongoing, but these cover a range of areas of medicine.
Philippa comments: "It has been an interesting exercise reviewing the claims issued this year and considering the extent to which national trends replicate what we are seeing day to day in terms of instructions as a firm. While we don't yet have enough data to assess whether there are patterns in the nature of the cases, it is striking that these 14 trusts have a significantly higher number of claims than others – and several on the list are trusts that we often encounter in our work.
“NHS Resolution, which deals with all claims against NHS trusts, should have access to this data and it would be interesting to know whether the patterns in issued claims (which reflect only a small proportion of clinical negligence claims brought) are consistent with trends in overall numbers of claims against the various NHS trusts nationwide.
“What is also notable in the data of claims issued is that there are a number of claims against various ambulance service NHS trusts nationwide. This mirrors what we are seeing by way of a regular stream of enquiries relating to delays in ambulance call outs and failures in initial emergency assessments – particularly for head injuries and cardiac issues. We will monitor this data as the year goes on."
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