NHS: Negligence Mr. Lansley To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total premium payable to the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts has been in each financial year since 2000-01; and what estimate he has made of the amount of such premium payments in 2009-10. Ann Keen [holding answer 27 January 2009]: The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) collects contributions in the third quarter of the current financial year to cover the estimated costs to be incurred by the clinical negligence scheme for trusts in the following financial year. The information requested is in the following table and was provided by the NHSLA. ---------------------------------------------- |Financial year|Premium collected (£ million)| ---------------------------------------------- |2000-01 |49.7 | ---------------------------------------------- |2001-02 |41.2 | ---------------------------------------------- |2002-03 |221.2 | ---------------------------------------------- |2003-04 |247.9 | ---------------------------------------------- |2004-05 |406.8 | ---------------------------------------------- |2005-06 |468.3 | ---------------------------------------------- |2006-07 |457.6 | ---------------------------------------------- |2007-08 |447.3 | ---------------------------------------------- |2008-09 |396.3 | ---------------------------------------------- The premium to be collected for 2009-10 is £713.4 million. This is substantially higher than the previous year due to delayed settlement of over 100 high-value cases until a Court of Appeal ruling was made in the “Thompstone et al”1 indexation cases, as well as other factors such as rising legal costs. We would expect this figure to fall back in 2010-11. 1 (2008) 1 WLR 2207, (2008) EWCA Civ 5, (2008) 2 All ER 553