The financial cost of maternity failings.

The NHS has spent £4.1bn during the last 11 years settling lawsuits involving babies who suffered brain damage during birth.

The service paid out just under £3.6bn in damages in 1,307 cases in which parents were left to care for a baby with cerebral palsy or other forms of brain injury, NHS figures reveal.

NHS Resolution, which defends hospitals in England accused of medical negligence, spent another £490m on legal fees, taking the total cost of dealing with the legal actions to actions to £4.1bn.

A single case in which a baby is brain-damaged, often because they were deprived of oxygen during labour, can cost the NHS up to £20m to settle because of the high costs of caring for a child with significant lifelong needs as newborns in such cases often develop serious cognitive and physical disabilities, including jerky movements and an inability to see, speak and learn normally.

The £4.1bn bill for the 1,307 brain-damaged babies is further evidence of the growing crisis of poor care being provided across many NHS childbirth services. Almost two-thirds of maternity units in England are unsafe, according to independent health and care regulator, Care Quality Commission (CQC) which has warned that, overall, maternity care is worsening.

The data shows that between 2012-13 and 2022-23, 10 NHS trusts, mainly those that run one or more large acute hospitals, each settled at least 20 negligence cases involving cerebral palsy or brain damage.

Barts Health Trust in London settled the most cases, 36, at a cost of £32.6m. Many of the births happened years before they were settled, as it can take years for NHS Resolution and families to reach an agreement.

The number of claims settled by a trust is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of the care it provides, as trusts serve populations of different sizes and demographics.

Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust, which is at the centre of an inquiry into alleged mistakes in maternity care harming mothers and babies, settled 16 cases at a cost of £44.8m.

Three other trusts that have also recently been at the centre of maternity scandals, Morecambe Bay, East Kent and Shrewsbury and Telford, settled 14, 12 and 11 cases at a cost of £36.3m, £27.4m and £16.7m respectively.

NHS Resolution also settled 933 legal actions involving a stillbirth at a cost of £93m, it disclosed in its freedom of information response.

Chief executive of patient safety charity, Action against Medical Accidents, Paul Whiteing said: “The volume of harm and associated costs is appalling and confirms what we are seeing and hearing from distressed parents who are dealing with the consequences of having a brain-damaged baby and want answers from the NHS about how that tragedy occurred.

“Maternity services are in a poor state, as is shown by the overall number of maternity services that are rated as inadequate by the CQC through their programme of inspections.”