Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure NHS Resolution's claims management system has an injury code specific to invasive Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection to improve the quality of data collection on GBS clinical negligence cases.

Steve Brine, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care: NHS Resolution handles clinical negligence claims on behalf of National Health Service organisations and independent sector providers of NHS care in England. All claims received are categorised against pre-defined ‘cause’ codes on its claims management system. The cause code refers to the main cause(s) of the incident in relation to the claim.

NHS Resolution has advised that it is in the process of considering a new cause code for ‘Neonatal’ with a possible sub-code for Group B streptococcus. A decision on this is expected by summer 2019.

NHS Resolution uses the codes to support the production of claims scorecards for NHS trusts which enables trusts to ascertain potential risks within their organisation and assess where local interventions are needed.

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