Outside General Practice, Dental Negligence Claims Soar
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- Published: Friday, 11 October 2024 09:16
- Written by Peter Ingle
- Hits: 1690
Many GDPs have a pretty dim view of the dental claims companies, in particular one that is well known for its impressive ratio of legal costs claimed, to actual damages received by patients.
But other companies are also available, and one has managed to get a story with a link to its website in Birmingham Live. The link, conveniently goes directly to their dental claims service enquiry page. What makes this particular bit of free advertising a little different from the regular newspaper stories generated by the market leader, is that these claims were not against GDPs.
With the eye catching headline, “UK dental services branded ’truly Dickensian’ as Birmingham patients paid £160k in negligence claims,” the damages had been awarded against the local Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
Using data from the NHS Litigation Authority, which operates under the name of NHS Resolution, it was found that the Birmingham trust had settled the highest number of dental claims of all English trusts in the last five years. According to NHS Resolution there had been 12 claims that were settled against the trust between 2029 and 2024. Compensation came to £160,593 but there is no indication of the legal costs that were borne by the NHS.
Some idea of the national magnitude of awards and costs is that in the five years from 2019, the 106 trusts that have had claims made against them have accumulated costs of £11.1 million, including compensation payments, NHS legal costs, and claimant costs.
The variation in claims between trusts is considerable, with 92 of the NHS Trusts having five or less dental negligence claims. Between them, those trusts paid out £2,406,279 in damages settling 147 claims.
Behind the Birmingham claims were allegations of dental and nerve damage, as well as other failures and delays in treatment and operations.
The paper noted that the data, which was obtained from Freedom of Information requests, came as the UK’s “dentistry minister”, Stephen Kinnock had described the state of NHS dentistry as “truly Dickensian.” Mr Kinnock had gone on to describe NHS dentistry as having been “neglected to the point of rot, with too many patients unable to get an appointment.”
All of which puts more pressure on GDP’s and Community trusts, both in terms of demand, and the severity and complexity of the problems that they will be expected to deal with. Typically this demand will be from new patients and irregular attenders, where there is not an established relationship. All of which will increase the potential for patients being dissatisfied, and resulting claims. Dental deserts may not be popular with patients, but they are likely to be bringing on the good times for the claims companies
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