Irwin Mitchell’s specialist Medical Law and Patient’s Rights team has assisted a mother to obtain an interim payment after failures during pregnancy led to her daughter having serious disabilities.
The daughter of our client (G) is now five years old, she is from West Yorkshire and was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome and a related cardiac condition shortly after her birth. G has learning disabilities and impaired mobility and will require care for the rest of her life. The Defendant NHS Trust admitted that the failure to carry out the appropriate antenatal diagnostic screening tests during her mother’s pregnancy represented substandard care.
G’s mother approached Irwin Mitchell Solicitors for advice. A claim was brought against the hospital Trust responsible for her care, to secure compensation in order to provide G with the funds that she will need to gain the best possible quality of life in the future.
An urgent issue was that G’s family home was not suitable to meet her needs. It was a two-storey house and G found it very difficult to manage the stairs independently. There was no therapy room for her to meet with her therapists, no separate bedroom for her, and no room for carers. Very limited internal space meant that wheelchair access was impossible. G is going to need to use a wheelchair in the future because of her cardiac condition.
With the help of Martha Sweet, an Associate Solicitor in the specialist Medical Law and Patient’s Rights team in Leeds, a request for interim funds was made.
Extensive expert evidence and witness statements had to be gathered on G’s mother’s behalf to confirm G’s significant difficulties and support the case for her additional needs. A Hearing was listed at Leeds High Court to consider the request for funding, but shortly before it took place, the Defendant agreed to pay the sum of £725,000. This life-changing sum will enable G and her family to move house.
Irwin Mitchell will continue to fight to ensure that G’s needs are met and Martha is continuing to support G and her family with the medical negligence claim. As part of this, Martha will continue to work with the family, the rehabilitation team and other professionals to give G the best chance of living an independent life in the future.
The case will conclude once G’s prognosis for the future can be assessed by medical experts and her needs, for the remainder of her life, can be predicted and quantified.
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