AS health unions, doctors and nurses prepare for strike action over pay offers, a largely ignored, recently released report by the NHS shows the staggering sums being paid out in compensation to those individuals, families and relatives affected by medical negligence due to staff shortages. 

The annual report and accounts for NHS Resolution, an arm’s-length body set up to administer claims against GPs and hospital staff, reveals that at the end of the last financial year, the NHS had paid nearly £83 billion in liabilities in relation to historic claims received, or new claims likely to be received in future. 

That figure is nearly half of the whole NHS and social care budget for 2021, or enough to build 150 new hospitals.