The National Health Service has paid out more than £6 billion in compensation over the past decade for poor maternity care that left mothers and babies dead or injured, according to data released under Freedom of Information laws.
Daily cost of negligence
Taxpayers are footing a bill of approximately £1.7 million every day for devastating medical failures. The data, obtained from the NHS Resolution body, reveals that nearly 8,000 families have received compensation after mothers died, babies were killed, or children suffered life-changing injuries due to negligent care.
The largest share of payouts—£4.2 billion—went to cases where babies were injured at birth, often due to oxygen deprivation causing severe brain damage. Over the ten-year period, there were 2,167 such cases involving injured babies, costing £4.2 billion in damages alone.
Breakdown of compensation
In addition to baby injury claims, there were 4,939 claims from injured mothers totaling £752.6 million, 245 cases where mothers died leading to £41.1 million in payouts, and 449 cases involving baby deaths resulting in £32 million in compensation. In total, the 7,800 cases led to damages of £4.978 billion, with legal costs adding another £1.046 billion, pushing the overall bill beyond £6 billion.
Guy Forster, vice president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said: "Some of these claims involve children who have suffered catastrophic injuries at birth and will require care for the rest of their lives."
System under strain
Critics argue that the soaring payouts reflect a system under intense strain, with staff shortages and underinvestment contributing to avoidable harm. Investigations have been conducted into deaths caused by poor care at maternity units in Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, and East Kent, resulting in 748 recommendations for improvement. The largest maternity inquiry in NHS history, examining around 2,500 cases in Nottingham, is due to report in June, while another inquiry was recently announced into care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Initial findings from Baroness Valerie Amos's national inquiry revealed that many families felt there had been a "cover up" and defensiveness from NHS trusts after something went wrong, with suspicions that medical notes had been amended or redacted. Some mothers believed the system incentivized recording deaths as stillbirths to prevent coroner investigations. The inquiry pointed to a lack of NHS capacity and maternity workforce shortages that have built up over the last decade.
Midwives and delays
Midwives warned that vital antenatal appointments were too brief, mothers faced waits for medical assessments, and when babies were born, some inductions and caesarean section procedures were delayed. Forster added: "Every penny spent is caused by negligence that should have been avoided. Families are forced to turn to lawyers to get answers because the NHS is not always transparent about what went wrong, despite a duty to be candid. Failure to be open delays justice, increases legal costs, and prevents vital lessons from being learned."
Safety concerns
In October 2024, the Care Quality Commission warned that almost two-thirds of maternity units in England were unsafe, with standards deteriorating rather than improving. An NHS England spokesperson said: "The NHS has taken significant steps to strengthen maternity and neonatal safety, including introducing an early warning system to identify serious issues and implementing a national maternity care bundle to improve standards."
