Medical blunders by hospitals across Kent have cost the NHS more than £200 million in the last five years, it has emerged.

Mistakes at East Kent Hospitals (EKHUFT), Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells (MTW), Dartford and Gravesham and Medway NHS Trusts have equalled payouts of a staggering £203,760,195.65 since 2012, according to the latest figures.

This also includes court costs.

Indeed EKHUFT and MTW both feature in the top 20 trusts in the country for total payouts in that period, with bills coming to £73.8m and £61.8m respectively - some of which relate to historic cases several decades ago.

Many of the multi-million pound claims are maternity cases, particularly those for avoidable cerebral palsy, which can even exceed £20m per claim, according to NHS Resolution - the body which provides trusts with medical negligence indemnity cover.

Trusts pay an annual insurance-like contribution to NHS Resolution which uses the cash to settle all clinical negligence claims, therefore any funds paid out in litigation cases are not taken out of the trusts' frontline budget to provide patient care.

However, budgets have been impacted by rising premiums in a bid to cover those costs, which increased significantly in 2016/17 than on previous years, according to the trust's annual accounts.

EKHUFT paid some £18.3m compared to £16.2m in 2015/16, MTW up to £18.2m from £16.6m, Medway £5.6m from £4.8m and Dartford and Gravesham increased contributions from £5.7m to £7.8m.

Trusts argue the rising costs don't compromise patient care because the payments are planned well in advance.

Total payouts for medical negligence have also generally shot up on the previous year, with payouts from blunders at MTW totalling £19.5m in 2016/17, compared to £13.1m in 2015/16.

Furthermore, payouts from mistakes at Medway almost doubled from £7.6m to £13.4m while Dartford and Gravesham Trust also experienced a rise from £6.8m to £9.1m.

Payments relating to errors at EKHUFT were lower last year than in 2015/16 but health cheifs still had to fork out some £16.8m.

The trusts argue the data needs to be appreciated in context in that they are among some of the biggest in the country, with hundreds of thousands of patients attending its hospitals.

The data also reveals huge sums being paid over incidents which happened before April 1995.

These payments - funded by the Department of Health rather than NHS Resolution - could be down to a number of factors, according to health bosses, including lengthy legal battles, or simply patients not realising they may have a claim for compensation.

Between 2012 and 2017, EKHUFT paid out just shy of £2m for such incidents, while Dartford and Gravesham paid out just over £1m.

Medway and MTW haven't made any historic payments over the last five years.

Health chiefs say they are taking a number of steps to cut medical negligence costs, including capping fees legal firms can recoup from the taxpayer when they win low-value cases, introducing a voluntary alternative compensation scheme for infants who suffer avoidable brain injury at birth.

Others include cash incentives for trusts which take action to make maternity services safer and simply trying to resolve more cases before they go to court.

A spokesperson for EKHUFT, which runs hospitals in Ashford, Canterbury and Margate, said: “Although very rare, serious incidents sometimes occur and we take these extremely seriously.

"They are thoroughly investigated and we learn from the experience, changing medical procedures, so that the risk of mistakes is eliminated as much as possible.

“The trust carries out 50,000 operations a year and we have more than one million contacts with patients.

"As a large trust we perform more procedures than most, which means payments will be relatively higher in comparison with those of smaller trusts.

“Payments are decided by NHS Resolution – not the trust. The payments have increased over the years but there are many reasons for this, including inflation.

"The sum of payment is not reflective of the seriousness of an incident. Insurance costs rise with increased payments, but the trust plans and mitigates for this accordingly.

“The trust has a strong safety record. For example, we received a ‘Top Hospitals’ 2017 award, an accolade based on the evaluation of over 20 key performance indicators covering safety, clinical effectiveness, data quality, patient experience and quality of care.”

However, Ken Rogers of the Concern for Health in East Kent campaign group, said: "Words don't describe it. If they're avoidable, they shouldn't happen in the first place and that means either procedures are rushed, we haven't got enough staff, or there's a lack of training. If you don't complain, what's to stop it happening again?

"One would hope if people have to pay out large sums of money they put things in place so that doesn't happen again. If these negligence claims are going up, then perhaps lessons aren't being learned or we're doing far, far more procedures and as a result there's mistakes being made.

"This is another indication that things aren't right in east Kent. It's one of the biggest trusts in the country, but that doesn't mean to say you make more mistakes than anyone else. It shouldn't be relative to the amount of work you're doing."

A Dartford and Gravesham spokesperson said: "Medical negligence claims have increased in the NHS in recent years. The trust’s increases reflect this overall trend, increases in patient population, and historic claims for which the trust took responsibility as a result of dissolution of South London Healthcare NHS Trust."

A spokesperson for MTW added: "An increase in payments is not by itself a generalised indication of the quality of care we provide. Cases can stretch over many years and payments can be reflective of large single sums or simply, more claims being settled during one year than another.

"Despite the increase in payments, it is important to note that MTW has in fact had fewer formal clinical claims opened over the past few years.

"The higher payment figure doesn’t necessarily mean there have been more incidents recently, rather, that there have been a higher number of historical settlements in a short period of time.

"It could also be reflective of the value of individual claims. For example, in 2012, two cases were settled, yet in 2016, 55 were settled.

"The league table that has been produced is not therefore indicative of a less safe service today for MTW’s patients and the vast majority of the tens of thousands of patients we see each year who continue to be seen safely and to a high standard."

A spokesperson for NHS Resolution added: “Incidents in maternity account for 10% of the number of claims we receive each year but 50% of the expected cost of the claims.

"This is because of the very high cost of cases which tragically involve brain damage at birth where provision must be made for life-long and complex care needs.

“Whilst thankfully, these incidents are very rare, each one offers an opportunity for learning in order to prevent the same thing happening again.

"Our recent report, ‘Five years of cerebral palsy claims’, made recommendations for action which achieved wide consensus and commitment from those involved in maternity care.

“This year we will be offering an incentive payment of up to 10% of a trust’s maternity premium for those who can show that they have implemented 10 maternity safety actions, as set out in the Maternity Safety Strategy.

“In the past, it has taken a long time for these incidents to come to the attention of NHS Resolution as a claim for compensation.

"We are continuing to receive new claims under our historic scheme for incidents which occurred prior to April 1, 1995.

“Furthermore, the cost of these historic claims has risen due to factors such as increasing life expectancy and more recently, a change to the court discount rate.

“From April 1 this year, this changed and NHS Resolution is now involved right from the start in order to improve the support for families and the healthcare staff involved in these rare but tragic incidents and to speed up resolution.’’

Medway NHS Trust was also contacted for comment.