Dear Friend,

This week Full Fact has been looking into claims made in a comment piece in The Times that the NHS in England pays £8.2 billion on maternity negligence compensation a year.

This is not true. NHS Resolution’s annual accounts show that a total of £2.6 billion was spent on clinical negligence payments in 2022/23, up from £2.4 billion in 2021/22. The £8.2 billion seems to refer to a different measure, the “cost of harm” relating to maternity care in 2021/22.

FACT CHECKS

The number of prison escapes has been falling since the 1990s

At Prime Minister’s Questions on 13 September 2023, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed that “prison escapes under the Labour government were almost 10 times higher than under the Conservatives”.

This figure is correct, based on official data for England and Wales, but doesn’t tell the whole story. The number of escapes fell sharply during Labour’s time in office, and was higher still under John Major’s Conservative government. The figure also only includes escapes from prison rather than escapes during transit. When all escapes are taken into account, there were around five times as many under Labour.

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Do smart meters allow energy companies to cut you off remotely?

A post on Facebook claimed that energy companies can cut off your energy supply remotely if you have a smart meter. Some users commented on the post disputing this.

Full fact looked into the claim and found it is technically true. Smart meters allow energy suppliers to disconnect you or change the meter to a prepayment one remotely. However, there are several steps energy suppliers are meant to go through before resorting to remote changes to your meter or supply, and there are now some groups of people they can’t disconnect at certain times of year or change to prepayment meters at all.

Traditional meters mean suppliers usually have to apply to the courts for a permit to enter someone’s home to disconnect them or change them to a prepayment meter.

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Claims made by high profile YouTuber are far from ‘watertight’

A Facebook post with 173,000 likes and 118,000 shares makes a number of claims about the safety and health effects of tap water. The post was written by Nitro Luke DX, a British gaming video creator with over a million YouTube subscribers, and almost 800,000 followers on Facebook.

The post, which includes an image of a pipe with brown build-up, says tap water is “the most underrated cause of disease” and describes it as “loaded with heavy metals, pesticides, fluoride [and] chlorine”. It goes on to say: “Make sure to only drink spring water. Spring water = living water.”

In fact, all the substances listed are regulated to safe levels in UK tap water. Spring water may also contain small quantities of some contaminants, but these are regulated to safe levels too.

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You’ll be responsible for spotting, exposing and tackling bad information, writing a number of fact checks each week, and also writing features and other content as required.

We’re looking for candidates with proven journalism experience and a good understanding of what we do, but prior fact checking experience isn’t necessary. You will need to be able to quickly master and explain tricky, nuanced topics in clear, concise copy - and must have an eye for a story.

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