Our priorities for 2026/27

We will continue to focus on the efficient delivery of our core services to a high standard. In parallel we will drive forward necessary and planned changes and improvements to our services and how we operate, to ensure we are keeping pace with wider changes in the NHS and justice system and partnering with others to improve patient safety. We will take up opportunities such as developments in technology, including the continued deployment of AI and any upcoming changes in the legal environment.

Strategic priority 1: Fair Resolution

What success will look like: All of our services will continue to minimise both distress and cost by keeping patients and staff out of litigation and other formal processes wherever possible, and evolve to deliver the best possible outcomes.

In 2026/27, our Claims Management service will:

• Work closely with the NHS and claimant representatives to understand and respond to changes in the legal environment, to collectively ensure that we are delivering fair and effective management of claims.
• Continue to deliver a range of dispute resolution options including resolution meetings, mediation, early neutral evaluation and stock-takes. This will be supported by a new legal panel framework.
• Continue the expansion of our pre-litigation service so that it becomes the standard way for managing low- and medium-value claims.
• Continue the testing and expansion of managing higher-value claims in-house, reducing our reliance on external suppliers to manage claims at pre-litigation stage. We will also continue to explore alternative suppliers and technological solutions to deliver further cost and process efficiencies.
• Evolve our EN scheme and processes as part of our response to the findings of our EN evaluation and as part of our ongoing commitment to strengthen our collaboration with the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations team.

In 2026/27 our Practitioner Performance Advice service will:

• Strengthen its capabilities through our Fit for Future change programme. As we continue to see a sustained increase in the number of new advice cases, the service will embed changes to roles, ways of working and processes, with a focus on strengthening leadership capacity to be able to progress workstreams on continuous professional development and quality assurance.
• Deliver fair, respectful and expert advice and interventions which ensure the resolution achieved is focused on service quality, retention and practitioner experience. We will also proactively challenge management practice that puts patients and/or practitioners at risk.

In 2026/27 our Primary Care Appeals service will:

• Continue to deliver a fair, prompt and cost-effective appeals function, acting in accordance with our directions and relevant regulations. We will ensure that we remain responsive to a changing primary care landscape.

Across all of our functions, we will continuously improve our approach to emerging and significant concerns. This will include ensuring effective systems are in place to share information internally and externally where we see instances of harm or potential harm.

Strategic priority 2: Data and insights

We will continue to work closely with the DHSC and others, contributing our data and expertise. We will continue to support efforts to explore options for change as part of our national role as experts in healthcare compensation claims.

What success will look like: We will leverage our unique data and insights to learn from harm and improve the response to the issues we see across the health and justice systems.

In 2026/27 our Safety and Learning and Advice functions will:

• Continue to work with stakeholders at every level, from undergraduate healthcare professionals to Board-level executives, to improve the regional and system-wide response to harm, including considering how the professional and statutory duties of candour are effectively fulfilled, and just and learning cultures are embedded. We will do this in collaboration with system partners and professional bodies, including the National Quality Board.

• Continue to work in partnership with others in the health system to ensure that we collectively prioritise and rigorously test the work we do and the data and insights we provide, ensuring that it adds value, can be implemented, contributes towards improvement and will give staff practical tools to implement necessary change. This will include considering new methodologies to evaluate the impact of our work.

• Deliver a wider suite of learning resources, education materials and practical tools, including insights publications, expert views and practice perspectives.

• Roll out our Compassionate Conversations Train the Trainer model to trusts and launch a practitioner insight learning tool, all of which help to build local capacity and capability to resolve concerns in a fair, timely and proportionate way. This will be in addition to our core education programmes including Maintaining High Professional Standards, Case Manager and Case Investigator training.

In 2026/27 our Appeals function will:

• Be responsive to our Appeals operating environment and identify any learning resources and training needed by our key stakeholders in order to build capacity and capability for the fair resolution of disputes at a local level.

Strategic priority 3: Maternity and neonatal care

We recognise that avoidable harm in maternity and neonatal services still occurs, with devastating consequences for the baby, parents and wider family, as well as for the NHS staff involved. We can never reverse the resulting damage, but we can play our part to support those affected by avoidable harm and work with the system to improve maternity and neonatal care.

What success will look like: We will evolve our Early Notification and Maternity Incentive schemes by responding to findings from their independent evaluations to drive improvements in safety and to continue to contribute to wider maternity and neonatal safety improvements, as reflected in our strategic priority.

In 2026/27, we will:

• In line with our strategic commitments, continue to work collaboratively with partner organisations who contribute to the delivery of safe and effective maternity and neonatal care, including via the MIS Collaborative Advisory Group and representation on national and regional steering groups and committees.

• Publish the MIS evaluation and launch MIS Year 8 as a transitional year, drawing on findings from the evaluation and emerging national priorities, consolidating MIS’s role as both a driver of safety improvement and a mechanism for shared accountability across the maternity and neonatal system. Develop the scheme further for Year 9, considering recommendations from the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation and Taskforce, and ensuring our work supports identified priorities where possible.

• Complete the EN scheme evaluation and draw on the findings to evolve the scheme, including reviewing the role of our Maternity Voices Advisory Group to ensure it effectively represents the families we support.
  
  
• Continue to develop our Family Liaison service, so that families receive personalised support where possible.

• Continue to ensure our Advice service supports the management of resolution of individual and team performance concerns in maternity and neonatal services.