A NEW investigation has revealed Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust paid out more than £20,000 in compensation for clinical negligence claims involving medication errors over the past five years.

According to data obtained by Medical Negligence Assist from NHS Resolution - the legal body representing the health service - the Trust has been involved in six such incidents since 2019.

Of those six incidents, five of those claims resulted in financial settlements totalling £21,000 (excluding legal fees) - and means the Trust now ranks among the top 10 out of 236 NHS Trusts in England for the highest pay-outs linked to medication-related negligence.

Medication errors are described by the NHS as any Patient Safety Incidents where there has been an error in the process of prescribing, dispensing, administering, monitoring or providing advice on medicines.

Errors can include failures to properly monitor patients on powerful drugs, poor communication between GPs and hospitals and giving the patients the wrong medication. Unfortunately, such errors have the potential to cause significant damage to patients including cardiac arrest, stroke, anaphylactic shock and even death.

MNA solicitor Sophie Cope says: “The effects of medication errors can vary from a short period of illness to life-changing injury. Regardless of the effects, these errors shouldn’t happen.”

Medication error claims have cost the NHS as a whole £54-million in compensation pay-outs alone in the last five years, as well as a further £35.6-million in legal costs. Across England, NHS Trusts have paid out a total of £54,054,916 in damages settling claims relating to medication errors since 2019, with NHS legal costs and claimant costs bringing the total to £89.6-million.

Between April 2019 and March 2024, NHS Resolution received a total of 1,129 claims and incidents relating to errors in the medication process. Of those, 765 claims have been settled with damages amounting to £54-million.

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust tops the list with the number of claims settled with damages, amounting to £4,723,658.

In the last five years, the most common reason for medication error claims lodged against NHS Trusts was for unnecessary pain - costing £5.3-million in compensation pay-outs. Death as a result of medical negligence relating to medication errors was the second most common cause of claims for which £4.7-million has been paid out in compensation since 2019.

A further £1.4-million was paid out for psychiatric or psychological damage as well as £1.3-million for anaphylactic shock or allergic shock.

Responding to the findings, a spokesperson for the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust said: “Patient care and safety is always our top priority, and we will do everything possible to avoid medication errors and to learn from incidents to reduce the chance of a similar event in the future.”

“Medical negligence claims are paid through the national scheme run by NHS Resolution, into which NHS trusts pay annual contributions. The amount paid in compensation can vary significantly from year to year depending on the nature of claims being settled during that period.”