Medical negligence claims land troubled mental health trust with £2.5m damages bill
Last updated 18th Sep 2024
A mental health trust fined over previous patient deaths and subject to investigation over inadequate care has paid out more than £2.5m in damages in the past five years.
The Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV) settled 28 negligence claims between 2019/20 and 2023/24, leading to the huge bill.
On top of that a further £1.687m in legal fees were paid, of which £1.343m was claimants’ legal costs.
Meanwhile, a total of 110 claims against TEWV over the five year period were received by the body NHS Resolution, which released the figures in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
The FOI compiled by the firm Medical Negligence Assist had requested the number of claims against NHS trusts for medical negligence in respect of community mental health services or psychiatry going back to April 2019.
The number of claims against TEWV were higher than any other trust operating such services, the next nearest being the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, which was subject to 93 claims.
A TEWV spokeswoman pointed out that 82 claims remained from the 110 total and “will include ones we have successfully defended and ones that are ongoing”.
It said NHS Resolution had advised that the figures, which showed that over the five years a total of £195m were paid by NHS trusts in damages and legal costs, should not be interpreted as a league table.
This was because larger organisations which provide more complex treatments may receive more claims than smaller organisations or those providing low risk care.
TEWV said it was one of the biggest mental health trusts in the country, serving a population of two million people, and also provided mental health care in prisons.
NHS Resolution – the former NHS Litigation Authority – is an arms length body of the Department of Health and Social Care which handles disputes on behalf of the NHS and attempts to impart learning for improvement from them.
The top five primary causes for claims being settled with damages subsequently paid by trusts were a failure or delay in treatment; a patient self-harming; unexpected death; a failure to supervise and inappropriate treatment.
‘Significant sums’
Middlesbrough and Thornaby East MP Andy McDonald, who has been a prominent voice in highlighting serious problems at TEWV, said: “These are significant sums being paid out to claimants, who are quite rightly compensated for the harm and losses they have suffered as a result of negligent health care.
“Behind these numbers are individual patients and their families who have been failed by the trust.
“Whilst I have been extremely critical about the performance of Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust over a series of failures, there is a lot to unpick and understand from these raw figures.
“All trusts are not the same and provide a differing range of services, some more complex than others, but I will be meeting with the trust to explore the matter further.”
In April this year TEWV was ordered to pay £215,000 for safety failings which contributed to the deaths of two vulnerable patients.
Christie Harnett, 17, from Newton Aycliffe, took her own life at the former West Lane Hospital, in Middlesbrough, in June 2019 prior to its closure.
Another unnamed woman ‘Patient X’ also took her own life at Roseberry Park Hospital, in Marton Road, another of the trust’s facilities, in November 2020.
At a sentencing hearing at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said the trust failed to address ligature risks, carried out inadequate observations and underestimated the risk of self-harm.
Meanwhile, a report published in March last year arising from an independent inquiry, described care at the former West Lane Hospital – since reopened in 2021 and renamed Acklam Road Hospital – where three teenagers were treated prior to their deaths, including Christie, as “chaotic and unsafe”.
It said “excessive and inappropriate” restraint had been used at the former hospital, which provided specialist child and adolescent mental health services, including treatment for eating disorders.
The report also found self-harm was “facilitated” with staff told not to intervene unless it could be fatal.
Christie, Nadia Sharif, also 17 from Middlesbrough, and Emily Moore, 18, from Bishop Auckland, took their own lives in an eight month period up to February 2020 while under the trust’s care.
The report, commissioned by NHS England, found “clear synergies” between care failings experienced by all three, and followed other reports and investigations which also identified sub standard regimes at the trust previously.
TEWV apologised following both outcomes and said “significant changes” had been made.
TEWV was rated overall as ‘requiring improvement’ by the CQC last October, although some individual categories were deemed to be ‘good’.
The CQC said some of the trust’s systems and processes did not operate effectively at a senior level.
It also did not always have enough suitably trained staff to deliver safe care in all services due to high sickness rates and significant reliance on temporary staff.
Action plans to remove environmental ligature risks had not all been completed and some wards had blind spots which had not been identified or mitigated, although the trust acted on these at the time of the inspection.
The CQC said at the time there was a backlog of 100 serious incidents requiring investigation and external support was being used to manage this.
The Darlington-based trust also missed opportunities and appeared reluctant to consistently engage with people who used services, staff and others who had negative experiences or had been involved in incidents.
However there were a number of positives highlighted, including improvements in forensic inpatient secure wards – wards for people with a learning disability or autism – along with wards for older people.
Leaders were said to be experienced, visible and approachable and had ensured improvements across the trust since the last inspection with no areas continuing to be rated as ‘inadequate’.
The CQC said: “Executives and non-executives were passionate about the trust’s delivery of safe, high-quality care and were aware of most of the trust’s challenges, risks, and issues.
“Staff felt supported and valued and had confidence in the trust’s freedom to speak up process.
“The trust had undertaken work to understand the risks of closed cultures across the services it provided.”
A statement from TEWV in response to the NHS Resolution figures said: “As one of the largest mental health trusts in the country, our patients and their loved ones are at the very heart of everything we do.
“The majority of those we care for have a positive experience, however we know there’s more we need to do.
“We’re incredibly sorry when care falls below the standards we set ourselves, and are committed to working with our patients and their families to really understand what happened and make the necessary improvements.”