Le passività totali del servizio sanitario nazionale per negligenza medica hanno raggiunto i 60 miliardi di sterline

One of the horrifying numbers I’ve seen is that the bill for medical negligence in the famously stretched, understaffed maternity services exceeds the entire maternity service budget.

How do you let things get so bad that recruiting more staff pays for itself in lower negligence payouts but somehow you can’t even manage that?

My family currently have two investigations going on the death of both my grandfathers.

First was a surgeon accidentally severed an artery during surgery and all we got is an “oops lol”, we’d normally be understanding but a follow up surgeon was like “yeah that should never have happened and I don’t understand how the previous surgeon did this”.

My other grandfather recently died. Went to see a heart specialist due to difficulty breathing and stenosis. Specialist said he’s fine, has the artery of a 40 year old. Sent him home. Back in hospital 1 week later with breathing issues against. On top of this he was suppose to be transferred to a different hospital during that stay. Hospital communication didn’t work out they said they put in the transfer request, nan calls the specialist hospital to ask what’s happening and they say “we had no idea he was there, he should have been in this hospital immediately and we are awfully sorry”. Unfortunately he never made it as he died from corona and sepsis.

Following on with the same grandfather, a few years ago he had an amputation and he was adamant he had an infection. Doctor kept saying, “no no it’s fine” turned out he did and spent months in agony for no reason.

Even as a child it wasn’t great. When I was a child a doctor misdiagnosed me with sickness and diarrhea. He didn’t bother to do a urine text, if he did he would have seen I had a kidney infection. Ended up spending months being barely able to walk, vomiting up every food and drink I had as well as stomach bile. Was hospitalized in the end and in a very severe condition. Ended up as an outpatient for 10 years and have lifelong issues due to it.

NHS dentist also messed me up when I was younger. Went to a clinic and had dentist from Pakistan. He was very nice and I really trusted him. I went to the dentist in pain in one of my tooth and a very clear hole I could feel. He did x rays and said “there’s no problem but let me do my other teeth”. Then he proceeded to give me 7 aesthetic injections. He kept injecting my cheek and there would be pain when he worked and then he inject me again into the cheek and not my gum. The nurse was horrified. Did a bunch of teeth and I left.

Came back a month or so later and had a woman this time. She apologized profoundly and said “sorry but I need to check what he did” she was horrified and said “sorry he missed a really big infection, you can smell it” and she was right when she removed the filling of the tooth with the hole is absolutely stunk. She then went on and said “he has made a mess of your teeth, I need to redo all of them” and I had to do all my fillings again nearly but some she left.

Came to Japan, dentist did an Xray and said “excuse me but why do you have one giant singular filling already cross two teeth?” He was absolutely bewildered. He had to cut the filling away from my gum as it had fused.

Basically where the hell is the QC in health care? It feels like the Wild West seriously.

“The NAO report said legal costs for low-value claims now vastly exceed the damages paid to claimants.”

Ambulance chasing lawyers are the problem.

Rachael Reeves could raise a lot of taxes if legal fees were taxed appropriately…