Page 32 - Pharmacy Appeals 1/4/04 to 31/3/05

8 Performance report

Chair's welcome

2021/22 was a pivotal year for NHS Resolution and the services we provide for the
National Health Service and its patients and staff. Against the background of ongoing
disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, this year marked the completion of our

former five-year strategy, creating a firm foundation for the generation of our approach
for the next three-years outlined in Advise, resolve and learn: Our strategy to 2029.

No strategy can predict all events and our five-year
programme was influenced by new Government
requests (e.g. the general practice indemnity
schemes) and the Covid-19 pandemic (for
example, the coronavirus indemnity schemes).
Our operating model, partnering with our legal panel,
allowed us to flexibly respond to new priorities without
significantly affecting progress towards our strategic
aims and we took the opportunity to refresh the
strategy in 2019 to ensure continued relevance.
Irrespective of all the above achievements, the cost to the
public purse of responding to clinical negligence continued
to rise over the last year with damages payments under
secondary care clinical schemes increasing by 10.3%
to £1.775 billion and claimant and NHS legal costs also
rising, the latter at a slower rate than the former. The
biggest single influence on our provision remains the
long-term discount rates set by HM Treasury to place a
value in today's prices on payments against claims that
we expect to make many years into the future. The 2021
discount rate reductions have increased the forward
The last five years have seen what was the NHS Litigation
provision by £42.6 billion to £128.6 billion. This is an
Authority (NHSLA) truly develop and change into
accounting provision that will further change with future
NHS Resolution, not only in name but in substance. rate changes. Another important figure to focus on is the
There can be no greater illustration of that than the provision for CNST for claims arising from incidents in
graph on page 38, which shows a fundamental shift 2021/22, which is £13.3 billion, a figure we have referred
from formal litigation towards non-litigated claim to previously as the "annual cost of harm". Removing
resolution methods, which are invariably less adversarial the effect of the HM Treasury discount rate change
and often better for patients and staff alike. translates this figure to £8.7 billion which is comparable
By way of a reminder of our journey over the to previous years, while remaining a very significant sum.
last five years - our strategy was shaped by three
The key contributor to this is the cost of maternity
key themes:
related claims which make up 62% of secondary care
• Proactively driving a less adversarial system clinical claims by value and 12% by volume, hence our
• Using our expertise and data to improve safety continued focus on supporting improvements in maternity
care and the magnification of this priority within our
• Delivering greater value
new strategy. Our Early Notification Scheme is providing
and delivered by an organisation which capitalised
contemporary safety feedback for the NHS (rather than
on the synergy generated by the former NHSLA,
delayed by several years following a mature claim) and
National Clinical Assessment Service and Family
supporting families better with earlier admissions of
Health Services Appeal Unit becoming integrated
liability and interim payments where appropriate.
as NHS Resolution. A summary of the achievements
of that strategy is set out on page 12.

https://resolution.nhs. uk/2022/05/19/nhs-resolution-strateav-to-2025-published/