More than £31m paid out by NHS for misdiagnoses, new figures show
Misdiagnosed patients have been paid more than £31million in compensation by NHS trusts in South London in the past five years, new figures show.
When healthcare professionals fail to diagnose an illness or injury correctly, patients can endure painful and potentially fatal consequences.
Since 2019, King’s College Hospital (KCH) NHS Trust, which manages King’s College Hospital, Princess Royal University Hospital, Orpington Hospital and Queen Mary’s Hospital, has paid out £16million in misdiagnosis claims.
The payouts, which relate to 69 settled claims in the past five years, total more than all other South London NHS trusts combined.
Gareth Lloyd, medical negligence solicitor for JF Law, said: “Misdiagnosis covers a wide range of clinical situations from the simple diagnosis of a fracture to potentially fatal cancer diagnoses.
“These cases can be a matter of life and death, and whether someone lives or dies will be determined by the success of the diagnosis.”
Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust (LGT), which delivers care to more than one million people living in Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley, had to pay more than £7million to patients for misdiagnosis.
From 2019 to 2024, 106 misdiagnosis claims were lodged against LGT, 82 of which were settled.
The most common outcome for misdiagnosis at the trust was unnecessary pain, which was lodged 23 times, with the trust paying £573,958 in compensation, followed by fatalities, which saw seven claims submitted.
A LGT spokeswoman said: “We see close to a million patients annually at LGT, the vast majority of whom are diagnosed and treated accordingly. We work hard to maintain high standards and get it right for all of our patients, but there are occasions when complications regretfully arise.”
LGT was followed by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust, which paid £4,915,66 in damages for 26 settled claims, and St George’s University Trust, which paid out £2,517,364 relating to 20 settled claims in the same period.
The figures have been obtained by Medical Negligence Assist via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to NHS Resolution – the health service’s litigation authority.
According to NHS Resolution, errors in diagnosis contribute to about 20 per cent of all clinical negligence claims.
Reasons for misdiagnosis vary from case to case, but NHS Resolution found that early incorrect diagnoses of soft-tissue injuries and issues requesting imaging, such as CT or MRI scans, were consistent failures across England.
A spokeswoman for KCH said: “We sincerely apologise to any patient who has been misdiagnosed as part of their care at King’s.
“We always endeavour to provide the highest standards of care to our patients, and in instances when things do not go as planned, our teams work hard to learn from them, and put improved systems in place to reduce the likelihood of them being repeated.”
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