The Government has announced its intention to impose financial penalties on NHS providers who allow certain preventable medical errors to occur.  The stated aim is to improve patient safety.  At first sight this may seem reasonable but we question whether the measure will achieve its aim.

The Government has prepared a list of “never events” which, if they occur, could result in financial penalties being imposed.  “Never events” are preventable medical errors which should never occur; hence the term “never events”.  The term applies to events where guidance and systems are already in place to prevent such events occurring.  The Government has drawn up a list of 25 never events which includes wrong-site surgery, misplacement of nasogastric tubes and misidentification of patients.  The full list can be found on the Department of Health website. 

Approximately 111 “never events” occurred last year costing the NHS an estimated £3.9million.  The Government’s proposal would enable the costs of treating the consequences of never events to be recovered from the NHS provider where the never event occurred.  In unspecified circumstances the charge may be waived.  However, is this the best way of ensuring patient safety?

Never events already have systems in place to prevent their occurrence and so, for a never event to happen, there has been a breakdown in those systems.  To correct that breakdown and improve patient safety it is important that lessons are learned from the event and steps taken to avoid repetition.  Such lessons should be shared between providers to ensure they do not occur elsewhere.  The imposition of financial penalties does not achieve this.  Instead, it may result in NHS providers seeking to conceal such errors, preventing lessons being learned and impacting negatively on patient safety.  Such penalties will put NHS providers already suffering from shortage of funds under increasing budgetary pressure.  This also has a negative affect on patient safety.

Therefore whilst this proposal may be aimed at improving patient safety, it is unlikely to achieve this in practice. 

Louise Austin

Associate Solicitor

Clinical Negligence