HEALTH bosses have been landed with a massive £10 million bill to settle clinical negligence claims. Mr Tim Bennett, Director of Finance with Wigan and Bolton Health Authority, said most of the cases related to claims first made several years ago and settlement between both parties had just been reached. Each year the health authority sets cash aside to meet claims and the money to settle the current cases had been available for a long time, he said.

"It is not a case of our having to find £10 million from money allocated to us by Central Government," added Mr Bennett.

"The way it works is that the NHS Litigation Authority reimburses health authorities to the tune of 80 per cent and we, and other health authorities, have to find the other 20pc," he added.

Wigan and Bolton, in common with other health authorities across the region currently "pools" money into a special fund from which withdrawals can be made to settle litigation claims.

Exceptional

The system means that this year Wigan and Bolton Health Authority will be making a larger than average claim from the pot.

"But this is an exceptional year and in future years we do not expect to be drawing anything like the amounts we are this year.

"We are basically settling old claims made against the health authority and all these current claims are pre Trust days.

"Nowadays claims are made against the Trusts which is another reason why we do not anticipate anything like these levels of payments in the future," added Mr Bennett.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.