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Beswetherick N.1
1Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Practice & Development, London, United Kingdom
Background: Clinical negligence claims against healthcare practitioners in the UK have increased year on year and with it the damages paid to patients. The NHS Litigation Authority reported a 23% increase in damages awarded, to £950m in 2015/16 compared to 2014/15.
Claims against self-employed physiotherapists have also increased with the potential of some claims of mis-diagnosis being awarded significant damages.
Claims against self-employed physiotherapists have also increased with the potential of some claims of mis-diagnosis being awarded significant damages.
Purpose: Professional liability insurance (indemnity) cover is provided by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) as part of its membership package. This 15-year retrospective study sought to assess and quantify any change to categories of claims notified to inform risk mitigation.
Methods: Data from clinical negligence claims notified to the Society´s insurance broker from 2001/02 to 2015/16 was requested and obtained from them. Permission from the CSP CEO and Directors was secured to undertake the study. Claims data was collated by category and analysed. Public liability, employer liability and fitness to practise claims were excluded from the analysis.
Membership data from the CSP and the professional network for self-employed physiotherapists was sought and examined for the same time period to allow for comparison with findings from the claims data.
Results: A total of 682 claims were notified over the 15-year period. Claims increased from 17 in 2001/02 to 66 in 2015/16. An increase of 388%. A significant increase in claims was seen in 2008/09 compared to the previous year. Subsequent to 2008/09 claims ranged from 53-78, mean 66.
Numbers of practising members in CSP membership increased by 31% during the timeframe. Membership of the professional network for self employed physiotherapists decreased by 5.9% in the same period.
The gender breakdown of claims notified were 52% against male and 48% against female physiotherapists. The gender breakdown of the CSP practising membership was 76% females to 24% males, and within the self-employed physiotherapist network 78% females to 22% males.
The top 5 categories of claims were "negligent treatment " (n=263), "mis-diagnosis" (n=124), "negligent manual therapy" (n=121), "negligent exercise" (n=56) and "electrotherapy burns" (n=55). The total of the 5 categories equated to 91% of all claims over the period.
Comparison of the percentage breakdown of the top 5 categories of claims in 2001/02 to 2015/16 found it was either the same or there was a small variance.
The mis-diagnosis category (n=124) comprised 30 undiagnosed fractures, 30 not specified, 10 cauda equina syndrome and 8 tendo-achilles rupture.
Conclusion(s): Claims against self-employed physiotherapists increased over the 15-year period. The increase cannot be attributed to membership growth as the professional network saw a fall in membership numbers over the timeframe. Reasons for the increase could include the public´s greater resort to claims or physiotherapists taking on more complex patients.
The study found that more claims were made against men than women. The reason for this is not understood.
Further work is required to understand the reason for the gender difference found.
Implications: The findings of this study need to be shared widely with physiotherapists through multiple channels to ensure learning from litigation claims is applied to practice and that risk is mitigated.
Funding acknowledgements: No funding was required.
Topic: Professional issues
Ethics approval: None required
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
