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Over 5,000 NHS compensation cases for misdiagnosis in last 4 years

There were 5,260 cases involving an NHS failure to make a correct diagnosis of an illness since 2014, with medical negligence compensation pay-outs to patients totalling £688million.

Just fewer than 10 per cent of the cases involved a failure to diagnose cancer or undue delay in making a diagnosis, with errors most often occurring in gynaecological, skin and urological cancers. A separate study has found that delays in cancer diagnosis resulted in cancer spreading in a third of the identified cases. The 545 cancer diagnosis errors resulted in medical negligence compensation of £46.9million being paid out by the NHS to patients.

The figures were released by NHS Resolution under Freedom of Information Act laws, and show that the number of patients receiving a compensation pay-out by the NHS has more than doubled. The number of patients receiving compensation in respect of a cancer misdiagnosis has trebled.

If you have suffered injury or loss as a result of a misdiagnosis or a delay in diagnosis, you may be entitled to medical negligence compensation. The compensation award will take into account any financial loss you have suffered and will continue to suffer in the future as a result of your illness not being treated correctly.

For information and advice from a medical negligence solicitor in Northern Ireland contact Wilson Nesbitt in Belfast by clicking here.

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