NI Health: Almost £22m paid on negligence cases
- Published
About £21.9m was paid on clinical or social care negligence cases in Northern Ireland in the year up to 31 March 2021.
Most of the figure, £15.2m, was paid out in damages, while £4.2m went on plaintiff costs and £2.5m in defence costs.
In 2020/2021, 483 new cases were opened and 434 cases were closed.
In 2016/2017, the total paid on cases was £28.5m.
The statistics, published by the Department of Health, were collected from health and social care trusts, agencies and legacy health and social services boards.
There were 3,872 negligence cases open at any stage during 2020/2021, 225 more than five years previous.
They had, on average, been open for about 2.9 years.
The figures revealed that four specialties accounted for almost half the cases which were open that year.
This includes obstetrics (628), accident and emergency (577), neurology (333) and general surgery (328).