North Tees NHS Trust - big pay out for misdiagnosis claims

Over a 5-year period, an NHS Trust in North Tees have had to pay out almost 4 million pounds to patients for claims of misdiagnosis. 

The North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust paid out 29 out of 40 misdiagnosis cases settled between 2019 and 2024 according to figures obtained by legal service Medical Negligence Assist via freedom of information requests.

The Trust had 11 claims made against them from 2019 to 2020, 10 claims from 2020 to 2021, 11 claims from 2021 to 2022 and 5 claims from 2022 to 2023.  The Trust provides hospital and community services across Stockton, Hartlepool and other parts of County Durham.

Despite the figures dropping to just 3 claims in 2023 to 2024, the Trust had to pay out the highest amount of money during that year, a sum of £1,585,611, and has paid a total of £3,907,275 over the 5-year period.  The most common outcome for misdiagnosis claims against the North Tees Trust were revealed to be additional operations according to the figures from the NHS Resolution. 

There have been 8,067 claims lodged against NHS Trusts all around the country for misdiagnosis within the past 5 years, around 5,677 of which have been settled.  One of the main issues of misdiagnosis claims were diagnostic errors which contributed to around 20% of all clinical negligence claims.  This leads to patients suffering unnecessary pain following incorrect medical care or treatment as a result of being diagnosed incorrectly by healthcare professionals.

Comment by NHS Foundation Trust:-

A spokesperson from North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are committed to providing the best care to our patients, however we recognise there are occasions when our care does not meet the standards we all expect. In those situations the trust is committed to working openly and honestly with patients and their relatives, to understand and resolve any issues and to learn from them, so we can continue to improve our systems and services.

“We have implemented the national Patient Safety Incident Response Framework which helps to identify where the most effective changes can be made. We are proud to provide safe and effective care and believe in working in partnership with our patients on a journey of constant improvement.”

The Trust have said that the claims settled between 2019 to 2024 may have related to incidents which occurred in the years before leading up to that period of time.