£5.6m NHS payout over birth blunders (From Bucks Free Press)

£5.6m NHS payout over birth blunders

1:53pm Monday 1st February 2010 in

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A TEENAGE girl left brain damaged because of failings at her birth at Wycombe Hospital has won a £5.6m payout.

Alice Joyce, 13, has cerebral palsy because doctors wrongly allowed a vaginal delivery and did not respond quickly enough to birth complications, a court found.

Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which admitted liability, today apologised and pledged to learn from mistakes.

The award will pay for 24-hour care, equipment, therapy, a hydrotherapy pool and accommodation for the 13-year-old Aylesbury youngster.

Her father, Chris Joyce, said: “Although it sounds like a large sum of money it is needed to fund Alice's round the clock care and ensure she gets as much out of life as her disabilities allow.

“Despite the many challenges we face in caring for her, Alice is a happy sociable little girl who gives us so much pleasure.

“It is so sad she will never have a normal life and do all the things we take for granted.”

He said: “The NHS continues to pay out considerable sums in these cases, isn't it time lessons were learned so other people would not have to go through this devastating heartache?”

Her mother, Carolyn Joyce, 50, should have been warned that a routine delivery posed a risk to rupture of the womb, said a statement from Darbys Solicitors LLP.

It said: “If such a rupture occurred it would be a medical emergency allowing only a few minutes to save the life of the baby and mother. “If she had been warned of this risk she would have chosen to have a caesarean delivery again and avoided the risk of labour.”

It said abnormalities on the baby’s heart monitor was not responded to and she was born several hours later in a very poor condition and not breathing.

Her mother, 36 at the time, suffered a massive haemorrhage shortly after delivery, requiring resuscitation and intensive care treatment.

The statement said: “Alice was admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit and developed fits.

“Her development was delayed and she was later diagnosed as having spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

“She has severe physical problems being unable to do anything for herself and also has severely delayed mental development and learning difficulties.”

Alice would have been ‘healthy and uninjured’ if she was delivered by caesarean, which Mrs Joyce had undergone for her previous child, or if the last hour of labour before delivery had been avoided, it said.

The claim was made against South Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which was replaced by the county-wide trust in 2003.

Sarah Watson-Fisher, chief nurse and director of patient care standards, said: “We would like to express our sincere apologies to Alice and her family for the errors in the care given at the time of her birth in 1996.

“We take matters like this very seriously and are committed to learning from our mistakes. “We hope that the settlement will be of great assistance to Alice and we offer her and her family our best wishes for the future.”

The family were only able to pursue the claim because of the availability of public funds, Darbys said.