Scotland’s health boards pay out more than £227m in 'eye-watering' compensation

Scotland’s health boards have paid out more than £227 million in compensation to NHS patients over a five-year period, figures have revealed.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, the country’s largest health board, spent almost £50m on compensation pay-outs between 2019/20 and 2023/24, while NHS Lothian, the second largest, spent close to £39m.

Figures obtained by the Scottish Conservatives show there were about 1,283 successful claims over those years, resulting in £227,143,589 of compensation being paid out.

A general view of staff on an NHS hospital ward | PA

Dr Sandesh Gulhane, the party’s health spokesman and a practicing GP, said frontline NHS staff are “dangerously overstretched”.

He said: “These eye-watering compensation pay-outs are the tragic yet predictable consequence of SNP mismanagement.

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“Dire workforce planning by successive Nationalist health secretaries has left frontline NHS staff dangerously overstretched and more prone to making mistakes.

“These errors often have catastrophic consequences for the patients involved, while the pay-outs they necessitate further reduce the resources available to already cash-strapped health boards.

“The SNP’s incompetence is creating a vicious circle in our NHS, and yet they don’t have a credible plan to tackle this crisis.

“Rather than continuing to defend his distracted and incompetent health secretary, [First Minister] John Swinney should adopt our common-sense plans to cut NHS bureaucracy, so that more money reaches the frontline and less has to go on compensation due to medical negligence.”

Between 2019/20 and 2023/24, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spent £49,989,625.36 on pay-outs - the most out of all of the health boards that responded. NHS Lothian spent the second largest amount, at £38,246,524.01.

NHS Lanarkshire paid out the third most, at £35m, while NHS Grampian spent £24m and NHS Ayrshire and Arran £18m.

The figures were revealed following Freedom of Information requests by the Scottish Tories. Only NHS Shetland did not respond.

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said it was “the largest health board in the country and currently looks after a core population of more than 1.3 million patients, almost a quarter of the population of the country”.

She said: “We are committed to providing the best possible care to our patients.

“Unfortunately, there are instances where things go wrong, and we would like to apologise to any patient or family who has suffered loss or distress. We treat all such instances with the utmost seriousness, and we are committed to implementing any learnings that come from them.

“Clinical negligence, public liability and employer’s liability-related claims are managed within the Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS) framework, a risk-pooling arrangement provided by the Scottish Government and managed within the NHS central legal office.”

Health Secretary Neil Gray said: “The vast majority of patients receive excellent care and treatment from the NHS, but of course I apologise to anyone whose treatment has failed to reach the standards which we expect.

“Patient safety is paramount and we are committed to ensuring all health and care is safe, effective and patient-centred.

“When things go wrong, we expect NHS boards to fulfil their statutory duty to be open with patients about what happened and to learn lessons to prevent it happening again.”

The Scottish Government has repeatedly come under pressure over the NHS. It previously announced it would publish two plans on the future of the health service in the coming months.

Ministers are working with local authority body Cosla to create a population health framework that will be released in the spring, while a health and social care service renewal framework will be released in late June.

First Minister John Swinney has pledged to reduce waiting times in the health service so no-one is waiting longer than one year by March 2026.

On Monday, he said his coming legislative programme would make it easier to get appointments with GPs, adding that a “corner has been turned” on NHS performance.