A total of £1.5 million was paid in the last financial year (2021-22) to patients who had suffered from clinical neglect by the Manx health service.

This figure came as a response to a Freedom of Information Act request, which published the last five financial years worth of data for clinical negligence payments.

From 2017 to April 2022, the combined total is nearly £8.3 million, which was handed out over 88 payments.

It shows a steady increase in the amounts paid out to patients and the number of cases brought against the department, up until the pandemic.

The figure rose to £1,512,224 in 2021-22. This is a big drop from the financial year 2019-20, which ended just as the pandemic began.

These numbers do not include incidents from GPs or dentists as the response said the Medical Indemnity Fund would not cover GP or dentist claims, as these would be picked up by their own indemnity.

The response does not detail the number of individual cases that have been resolved by the department, nor how many of those cases were out-of-court settlements.

No specific cases of negligence are referred to in the response, nor are there a breakdown of causes of negligence.

We do not know when these incidents of neglect happened in each of the years.

Twenty-eight cases still remain open, all of which are clinical negligence claims.

The response also shows that £239,057 has been paid in 2022 to date for medical negligence cases in Noble’s Hospital.

Since 2017 there have been four Freedom of Information (FoI) responses in relation to medical negligence or the costs it has been to the department.

A 2019 FoI response revealed that from March 31 2016 to October 31 2019, there were no court cases brought against the department for malpractice despite £405,698 being awarded in settlements in that time-frame.

An independent CQC report, commissioned by the government to help recognise the systemic problems in the health services, shows that in the accident and emergency department at Noble’s Hospital, there were three medicine errors, two in 2021 and one in 2022, that led to moderate or severe harm or death.

It also showed that there had been 17 errors relating to high-risk medication, this relates to sedatives, insulin, opiates etc.

Fourteen of these incidents happened between February and April this year.

The Courier approached the Department of Health and Social Care for comment, however no one was available by the time it went to press.