Misdiagnosis claims at NHS trusts which run West Suffolk Hospital, in Bury St Edmunds, and Ipswich Hospital, revealed
New data has revealed that patients treated by hospitals in Suffolk and Essex have been paid £13 million in misdiagnosis claims since 2019.
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), which runs Ipswich Hospital and Colchester Hospital, had 67 claims made against it during this period, 45 of which have been settled.
Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed the trust paid more than £12m in damages between 2019 and 2024.
NHS Resolution pays compensation claims on behalf of NHS trusts.
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
A total of £12,276,726 was paid out to ESNEFT patients, with nine of the claims relating to unnecessary pain caused by a misdiagnosis.
In the year 2023 to 2024, ESNEFT, which runs community hospitals in Felixstowe, Aldeburgh and across North Essex, had 13 claims made against it, with NHS Resolution paying out £2,314,890 in damages.
Dr Tim Leary, interim chief medical officer at ESNEFT, said the trust is committed to providing patients with ‘safe and compassionate care and treatment’.
“We take any concerns raised about the standard of care someone has received in our hospitals very seriously. We then carry out appropriate and timely investigations,” said Dr Leary.
“Where there have been failings and a negligence claim is lodged, we aim to settle that claim as quickly as we can.
“We do this by working closely with patients, their legal teams and our colleagues at NHS Resolution.
“We also share any lessons learned so we can improve our services for the future.”
West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
There were 25 misdiagnosis claims made against West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT) from 2019 to 2024, with 17 settled by the trust, at a cost of more than three-quarters of a million pounds.
WSFT, which runs West Suffolk Hospital, in Bury St Edmunds and Newmarket Community Hospital, settled 17 of 25 claims within this time period with damages totalling £830,747.
Nine of the claims were made in the year 2020 - 2021, five in the year 2022 - 2023 and 11 in the year 2023 - 2024.
Five of the claims submitted related to cancer misdiagnosis.
Another five related to misdiagnosis of a fracture.
Richard Goodwin, WSFT medical director, said: “Providing modern healthcare is complicated and whilst we strive to get diagnoses and treatments right first time, regrettably it is not always possible for a variety of reasons.
“We apologise again to those patients and their families affected by these rare mistakes.
“When mistakes are made or things do not go to plan, we are committed to working with our staff and patients to investigate what happened, learn from and act to improve our care to minimise the chance of errors occurring again.
“Care provided by the trust remains safe and the number of claims compared to the patients we support is very low – it represents 0.01 per cent of our activity, and indicators such as the Standardised Hospital Mortality Index show that we continue to provide overall high-quality care.”
The data and research was collected by Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to NHS Resolution.
The information was shared by Medical Negligence Assist.
