A&E negligence claims surge 41% as pressured emergency departments fail basics

Oli Coppock was 32 years old, working in digital marketing, going to the gym, DJing on weekends. In May 2024, a few months after treatment for a brain tumour, he went to Warrington Hospital's emergency department complaining of severe headaches and dizziness. He was tested and assessed. He was not given a brain scan. He went home. A week later, fluid that had been building up on his brain triggered a cardiac arrest. He did not recover. Now he lives in almost complete paralysis, his body twisted, unable to move. Tubes deliver his breath, his food, manage his waste. He communicates by blinking. His father, Stephen, believes his son understands everything happening around him but cannot respond.

Oli's case is one thread in a much larger pattern. The BBC has analysed NHS Resolution data and found that clinical negligence claims related to A&E care have risen 41 percent over the past five years in England. In 2020-21, there were 1,151 such claims. By 2025-26, that number had climbed to more than 1,623. The value of those claims exceeded £550 million last year. A&E is now the single biggest source of clinical negligence claims in the country by volume—more than maternity, more than orthopaedics, more than any other department.

Stephen Coppock knows the staff at Warrington were under strain. He says that plainly. But he cannot reconcile that pressure with the failure to order a scan for a son with a documented brain tumour and a recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis who presented with headaches and dizziness. The North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital's A&E, has now accepted a breach of duty. A CT scan, the trust acknowledges, would on the balance of probabilities have identified the fluid and led to surgery. The family received an interim damages payment. But more than two years passed before that acknowledgment came, and Oli's solicitor, Tanzeela Aslam, says those years cost him access to therapies and support that might have improved his quality of life. "There is no worse space for a human to occupy," Stephen says. "It's a permanent living nightmare."

Aslam, head of medical negligence at Express Solicitors, is seeing the pattern accelerate. She attributes it to the same pressures that doctors and hospital leaders cite: corridor care, long waits, staff stretched thin. The mistakes she encounters in A&E files include missed signs of acute deterioration, tests and scans that were never ordered, diagnoses that were wrong. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has flagged the rise as concerning. Over the past two years, one in ten patients who attended A&E spent more than 12 hours waiting to be treated or discharged. Dr Adrian Boyle, from the college, called the figures "sobering." He noted that clinical negligence cases remain statistically rare—roughly one in every 17,000 attendances—but said the pattern was unsurprising given how busy departments have become and how long patients stay.

NHS Resolution, which manages these claims for trusts, has published reports aimed at helping the NHS learn from the errors. NHS England pushed back slightly on the figures, noting that the lag between an incident and a claim being filed—typically three years—means claim numbers are not a precise measure of current safety. The department also said there were signs that A&E waiting times had begun to improve. Matthew Hopkins of NHS Alliance, representing hospitals, said health leaders were making every effort to ensure safe care and to learn when it falls short.

For Stephen Coppock, the statistics are abstract. Every waking hour, he worries about his son. He knows the system is under pressure. But pressure, he says, cannot excuse the failure to do the basics right. Oli trusted the health service. He believed it was there to help. Instead, at 32, his life was ruined by a decision not to order a scan.