Payouts for botched NHS treatments hit record high last year – as bill reaches £147million

PAYOUTS to people who had limbs amputated because of botched NHS treatments hit a record high last year.

Health service chiefs have spent £410million on claims from nearly 700 patients since 2019 — with £147million of that forked out in 2023.

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More than a third of successful claims came after doctors failed to spot a condition early enough to avoid going under the knife — which meant arms or legs had to be removed later.

A further 50 were triggered by inappropriate treatments, while 12 came after medics failed to ­perform an operation or botched simple surgical procedures .

Each of the 690 claimants since the start of 2019 won an average of £445,000 with the overall total including legal fees.

However, seven patients who lost limbs to bacterial infections due to healthcare blunders were each paid £1million-plus.

Last year’s spend was more than double the £71million of 2021.

Of the claims, 85 per cent had a leg amputated and the rest arms.

Personal injury solicitor John McQuater said: “An amputation is just about the most serious injury you can get and the payouts reflect that.

“In many cases, the claimants will win more for this injury than their families would get if the patient died, because an amputation is such a life-changing injury.

“The general principle with payments is to put the patient in a position they would have been had it not been for the medical negligence.”

An NHS spokesman told The Sun: “While patient safety incidents like this are extremely rare in the NHS, one incident is one too many, and trusts are required to investigate and understand what has happened so they can take effective steps to prevent them from happening again.”