ALMOST £4 million has been paid out in compensation by the Great Western Hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust in the past year, nearly five times the amount in the previous year.

Millions of pounds in medical compensation is paid annually by the taxpayer on behalf of acute hospitals and primary care trusts – and the figure is rising every year.

But this week it emerged that there was huge uncertainty over who would foot the bill in the future – with the Government’s radical reforms of the NHS axing the PCTs in 2013 and their role being taken on by individual GP surgeries.

It could mean that small practices, and even individual doctors, end up inheriting the insurance payment consequences of huge and ongoing historic payments, which are met by the soon-to-be axed PCTs.

A spokesman for GWH said over the past seven years, the amount of money paid out in compensation claims had fluctuated and in fact fewer claims had been made last year despite the alarming rise.

“We have a good record at GWH where patient safety is our top priority,” he said.

“Hospitals provide complex treatment and care for patients and whilst we do our utmost to provide care as safely as possible on rare occasions when accidents occur which result in some compensation claims.

“Each year we routinely treat well over 400,000 people and the vast majority have a good experience.

“The number of claims made in 2009/10 actually fell compared to the previous year, from 23 down to 21, although the value of these claims was higher.

“Nationally the amount of compensation paid appears to be increasing partly due to changes to the way inflation on payments is calculated.

“It is important to note that payments made in a particular year do not necessarily relate to incidents in that year and can sometimes relate to incidents that occurred up to 20 years previously.”

Figures revealed that in the past two years, Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, announced 55 job losses from its Devizes headquarters last month, was the source of around £1.5m in compensation from the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA), around nine times more than the average PCT figure.

A spokeswoman for NHS Wiltshire said that its figures were so high because it was one of only a handful of primary care trusts in England which – up until this year – ran maternity services.

Almost all the multi-million pound compensation payments it has been forced to make in recent years have been as a result of lifelong compensation packages results in complications at birth – some cases dating back to the 1990s.

As a result, Wiltshire’s payment demand from the NHSLA is a seven-figure sum, while other PCTs are the source of less than £100,000 a year.