The NHS could face a record compensation bill of more than £60m from civil claims lodged by the families of Lucy Letby’s victims, experts have said.
Parents whose babies have disabilities caused by Letby’s attacks at the Countess of Chester hospital could each expect to receive a payout of more than £10m to fund their future care.
Compensation paid by the NHS to parents whose babies died or were left with disabilities as a result of care at Shrewsbury hospital in Britain’s largest maternity scandal reportedly amounted to almost £50m. In a separate case, the health service had to pay £37m to a boy who was left brain damaged at birth.
Dr Dewi Evans, the prosecution’s lead expert in the Letby case, said: “The NHS could well end up with paying total compensation of £40m to £60m. That figure would be higher if the police identify other suspicious events.”
Detectives believe Letby may have harmed dozens more infants.
Evans, a consultant paediatrician who has acted in scores of clinical negligence cases, said: “The highest compensation almost always is given to the families of babies who suffer damage at birth. This is because the value of the claim is based on not only the degree of damage to the baby but the fact that the baby will suffer lifelong disability and [require] lifelong care.
“Where it can be shown that a baby has ended up with a lifelong disability that compromises its independent living or compromises their ability to earn an income, that individual could qualify for a multimillion-pound compensation.”
James Bell, the head of the law firm Kingsley Napley’s medical negligence and personal injury practice, said of the family of one of Letby’s victims, a baby girl who is now registered blind and has quadriplegic cerebral palsy: “Presuming that child has a normal life expectancy, those damages will be in the region of £20m-£35m.”
Claims for a brain injury at birth are notoriously lengthy, taking 11.5 years on average to reach settlement. This is partly because it can take years to establish the extent of the damage sustained and the care needed but also because of the difficulty of proving negligence and causation.
Letby’s convictions do not alleviate the need for claimants to prove negligence by the NHS trust, but lawyers to whom the Guardian spoke suggested that given the strength of public feeling, the trust would face pressure to admit liability.
Stephen Jones, the head of Leigh Day’s medical negligence team in Manchester, said the trust could argue that by committing the offences, Letby breached the employer-employee relationship to an extent such that it was not responsible for her. But he added: “I think there would be outrage that the trust wouldn’t accept responsibility for babies in their care.” He said compensation could run into eight figures for a family whose baby was severely injured and had a long life expectancy.
Emma Wray, a partner in Hodge Jones & Allen’s medical negligence department, suggested the NHS could set up a scheme for victims, as it has done with other scandals, to make claiming compensation easier.
The NHS made more than £1bn in clinical negligence payments relating to maternity in 2022-23, out of a total of £2.6bn. In the same year, maternity claims amounted to £45bn (65%) of the clinical negligence provision, which accounts for claims already received and expected relating to incidents up to and including 31 March but not yet settled.
Bereaved parents are entitled to relatively small sums under the criminal injuries compensation scheme, which stipulates a basic payment of £11,000 or £5,500 per parent, and under the Fatal Accidents Act, which for deaths before May 2020 stipulates £12,980 if negligence is proved.
Bell said the latter amount could increase to about £50,000 if the parent showed they had suffered severe trauma or psychiatric damage.
