OXFORDSHIRE’S hospital trusts will have to pay an extra 10 per cent on their insurance policies because of the rising costs of clinical negligence claims.
Figures released for 2010/11 show the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust spent more in negligence payouts than anywhere else in England last year.
Some £13m was paid out to patients, which rose to £15.3m including legal costs.
It is not known how many cases it relates to.
The money is not paid out directly by the trust, now known as the Oxford University Hospitals Trust. Instead it makes annual contributions to the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA), which then handles claims.
The news comes as Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announced yesterday that he had been forced to bail out the NHSLA to the tune of £185m as it was about to run out of money.
Nationally, annual payments to patients have grown from £277m in 2000/01 to nearly £1bn last year.
Locally claims have risen from £6.7m in 2005/06 to £13.2m last year.
The trust said this figure was not related to how much was paid out on its behalf but to its size and the services it offers.
The trusts’s 2008/09 payout of £10.5m was also the highest in England.
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