NHS Resolution: clinical negligence
Annual claims, damages and legal costs per NHS trust, from NHS Resolution's published annual statistics.
Covers the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST), Existing Liabilities Scheme (ELS), and Risk Pooling Schemes for Trusts (RPST). Totals and charts are for clinical schemes (CNST and ELS). RPST is the non-clinical scheme and is listed in the table but not added to clinical figures. NHS Resolution prints "*" in place of a figure for fewer than five claims or under £5,000 paid: those are shown as * below and are not in any total. Claims notified in a year and payments made in a year are not the same cases. Claims are counts, and payment amounts relate to the reporting year. Trust size, case mix and the time between an incident, claim and settlement affect comparisons; these figures are not a measure of current clinical risk.
NHS trusts notified 8,900 new clinical negligence claims (CNST and ELS) in 2024-25, with £2,075.1M in damages paid.
97 rows in this selection carry a figure NHS Resolution printed as "*" (fewer than five claims, or under £5,000 paid). Those figures are not in the totals, which are therefore lower bounds.
NHS and claimant legal costs are 25.8% of the total paid.
New claims up 12.7% year-on-year (2023-24 to 2024-25).
Over 6 years (2019-20 to 2024-25): 49,706 new claims and £10.5bn in recorded damages paid.
Trust records 4,074 records
Claims and costs over time All indexed years · clinical schemes (CNST and ELS)
Charts cover all indexed years, regardless of the record-year filter. Amounts are £ millions; gaps mean no amount is indexed.
Read the annual figures
| Year | New claims | Damages (£m) | NHS and claimant legal costs (£m) | Total paid (£m) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | 8936* | 1560.4 | 600.2 | 2158.0 |
| 2020-21 | 8197* | 1503.8 | 552.0 | 2055.6 |
| 2021-22 | 7633* | 1639.5 | 562.2 | 2198.8 |
| 2022-23 | 8145* | 1798.1 | 578.2 | 2373.7 |
| 2023-24 | 7895* | 1926.8 | 635.3 | 2558.8 |
| 2024-25 | 8900* | 2075.1 | 721.2 | 2792.6 |
Data from NHS Resolution Annual Statistics.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.