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When a child suffers serious permanent injury from medical mistakes or a negligent accident, the impact on the child and their family is devastating.
Compensation claims for children with cerebral palsy, severe neurological injury, acquired brain damage, and other disabling injuries, such as blindness, spinal injury or amputation, require skilled handling by specialist solicitors to ensure that the child receives their full entitlement to compensation.
Whether the injury was caused at birth, in early childhood or teens, our experienced medical negligence and personal injury lawyers have the expertise to achieve the highest compensation settlements for our clients.
Each claim is tailored to meet our client’s individual needs.
We offer initial advice to new clients free of charge. Each claim is tailored to meet our client’s individual needs.
We use interim payments to ease financial hardship and meet our client’s immediate needs. This allows us to support our client families as they begin rebuilding their lives. Our clients benefit from early, large interim payments to pay for therapies, specialist equipment, rehabilitation, suitable accommodation, special education and care.
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Our clients receive the highest standards of advice and representation and are always treated with compassion, outstanding care and understanding of the physical, emotional, psychological and financial impact that life-changing injury can have upon their lives.
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A claim can secure funding for rehabilitation as well as help families prepare for the future.
Where our client’s injury was caused by an insured driver, school or public body, our serious injury lawyers can often secure early access to rehabilitation, funded by the defendant’s insurer via The Rehabilitation Code.
Early rehabilitation has been proven to increase the injured child’s recovery. Even small improvements from early rehabilitation can make a big difference to their independence, mobility and ability to use assistive technology to communicate, access education and leisure activities. Later on, this gives the young person a better chance of being able to work or live independently with support.
Where liability is admitted we secure substantial interim payments (while the claim continues). We use interim payments to ease financial hardship and meet our client’s immediate needs. This allows us to support our client families as they begin rebuilding their lives. Interim payments may help the family buy, rent or adapt their home to provide more suitable accommodation, and pay for care, specialist equipment, therapies, and educational support.
We work closely with our client families and our experts to ensure that our client’s future needs arising from their disability will be met. In order to do this properly, final settlement may need to be delayed until the child has grown and developed enough for their future condition and needs to be assessed. During the waiting period, interim payments are often used to settle the child and family into their new home, and to set up new arrangements, such as help from professional carers. Young adults may try out a period of supported independent living, so that we can ensure that the claim makes provision for any challenges that lie ahead.
We take great care in helping our young, severely injured clients prepare for their future. We work with experts to understand their needs arising from their disability, now and throughout their lives. Our experienced deputyship team provide our clients and their families with ongoing support and longer term planning after the claim has settled.
We advise parents or guardians of an injured child to contact us as soon as possible after the events which caused the injury.
This helps us ensure that their child has the best chance of recovering full compensation, and that essential evidence is preserved to help them succeed with their claim. Depending on the type of injury, it may give the child earlier access to rehabilitation.
However, we are often instructed by teenagers/young adults (or their parents) who decide to make a claim for birth or childhood injury caused by medical negligence or accidents earlier in their childhood. Their parents may not have felt able to pursue a claim at the time of the injury. As the teenager faces adulthood they decide to seek help in making their own claim. In many cases, families find that as the child grows and develops or is about to transition to a new stage of life, they need help with meeting their increasing needs.
We understand the stress, worry, emotional heartbreak and daily struggle faced by parents of a severely injured child. We know how difficult life becomes for families dealing with the financial impact of a child’s disability and the courage it takes to reach out for help.
Our client families come to us at all stages of their child’s development. Some contact us immediately after the injury, seeking answers. Others come to us when the child is older, often after years of struggle, when the child’s needs increase or they find themselves unable to cope.
Compensation helps provide long term financial security to meet their child’s lifelong needs. Our clients benefit from early, large interim payments to pay for therapies, specialist equipment, rehabilitation, suitable accommodation, special education and care.
We act in the child’s best interests whilst supporting the parents through the difficult times that follow a child’s injury. As they come to terms with the child’s injury and adapt to life with a disability, our client families can count on our professional expertise and guidance every step of the way.
It can be very difficult to come to terms with a child’s injury which happens in our care or that of another family member or friend. We approach these cases with compassion, and focus on obtaining the child’s entitlement to compensation, working with parents to meet the injured child’s needs.
Our experienced and professional lawyers have helped clients where:
We know that the parents of children or young adults who receive substantial compensation for serious injury worry about them being vulnerable to the influence of others. The perception of sudden wealth can be misunderstood by friends, neighbours and even extended family who neither understand nor are entitled to know that the child has received compensation to meet their extensive lifelong needs.
We protect our vulnerable clients’ privacy by obtaining anonymity orders from the court. If you are concerned about your child’s vulnerability or privacy after settlement of their claim, let us know. We are here and happy to help you.
Compensation claims can help support disabled children with key transitions or new life stages:
The court requires compensation for a vulnerable young adult if over 18, to be protected by a Court of Protection appointed deputy. Boyes Turner’s medical negligence and injury lawyers work closely with our Court of Protection team, so that deputyship is set up as soon as an interim payment or compensation payment is agreed.
Our Court of Protection deputy can then ensure that funds are available quickly to meet the child’s needs. In the case of an interim payment, this allows us to start helping the family pay for adapted housing, essential specialist equipment, therapies and care, whilst the case is ongoing.
Where a child’s injury has not affected their mental capacity, they are entitled to receive their money when they reach adulthood. In practice, many clients prefer to safeguard their substantial compensation payment, to ensure that money remains available when they need it to meet their needs. Provision can be made to protect their compensation by paying it into a personal injury trust.
Further long-term security and peace of mind is provided in the way we structure the payment of large settlements for severely injured children with predicted long lifespans.
Where a child will remain dependent on others’ care, their lump sum compensation may be paid alongside a PPO, providing the child with guaranteed, index-linked, tax-free, lifelong annual payments to cover the cost of their care.
Every child has the right to an education which meets their needs. Many parents are unaware that they have a say in the choice of school. Sadly, whilst the law gives rights to children with special educational needs, in practice local authorities may be unwilling to provide adequate support and funding. This is where we can help.
Our SEN specialists have helped hundreds of families secure the right school placement for their child or additional special educational support to meet their individual needs.
Our special educational needs (SEN) lawyers will provide you with as much support as is needed. Some parents find that with a little expert guidance they can handle the process themselves.
Others feel more comfortable having a lawyer manage it for them. Whichever way you choose to work with us, our aim is to help you secure the educational provision that is right for your child.
Many of our clients have already recovered compensation or are in the process of making a claim following the accident or medical negligence which caused their child’s disability.
Some are referred by lawyers who have helped them in other areas but lack the expertise to help them with their educational needs. Others come to us directly because they know that when it comes to making important decisions with regard to their child’s education, they could do with some help.
We would advise any parent who is worried about whether their child’s special educational needs are being met to contact us early, as time limits apply in some cases. Our clients often describe the immediate sense of relief they feel after talking to us. Our results speak for themselves.
We act as a professional deputy for many of our child, teenage and young adult clients. We get to know our clients and their families well, and provide friendly, practical support. It’s good to know that professional does not have to mean impersonal.
Our specialist Court of Protection team act as deputies for many clients who have been brain-injured at birth or in childhood through accident or illness. Others owe their condition to genetic causes. We also provide trusteeship for those with physical disability.
If your child needs help with their financial affairs, our specialists will:
Our reputation as experts helping disabled children and their families means that clients often come to us from other solicitors for deputyship or trusteeship for help with managing their interim payments and final compensation.
We are regularly asked to take over deputyships with the approval of the Court of Protection, where the client’s lawyers recognise that they do not have the necessary skills or expertise.
We have a vast range of experience, here are some of our cases:
Depending on the type and severity of the child’s injury, their claim may include compensation for:
Where a bereaved child’s claim arises from the death of a parent, they may be entitled to compensation for their loss of dependency on their parent’s income or ‘services’ (such as childcare).
The court requires children to be represented in court proceedings by a ‘litigation friend’. This is usually a parent or other adult representative who has the child’s best interests in mind when instructing our legal team and acting on our advice. We liaise closely with the litigation friend throughout the claim, whilst acting on our client’s (the child’s) behalf.
Our cerebral palsy, birth injury and neonatal brain injury lawyers can help eligible clients access Legal Aid funding for their claims.
Legal Aid is only available to those who have suffered a brain injury or serious neurological injury from medical negligence at birth or within the first few weeks of life. The child’s injury must have happened in England or Wales. The parents’ finances are ignored when making the Legal Aid application, but the child will only be eligible if they do not have substantial money of their own.
Legal Aid funding is only available to a child if their claim is handled by a solicitor who has been approved by the Legal Aid Agency as a specialist in cerebral palsy and child brain injury claims.
Generally, no deduction can be made from the child’s compensation for legal costs where the child has Legal Aid funding. This means that parents have the certainty of knowing that their child will receive their full compensation on the successful conclusion of the claim.
Where a brain injured child is eligible for Legal Aid, we believe that it is in the child’s best interests to use Legal Aid funding for their compensation claim.
In accident claims, children’s medical negligence claims arising from other types of injury, or where the brain-injured child is not eligible for Legal Aid, we act for injured clients on a no-win-no-fee basis. No-win-no-fee agreements are formally known as conditional fee agreements or CFAs.
Where a client’s claim is run on a conditional fee agreement basis, unless our client wins their case there are no legal fees (costs) for them to pay. If the claim fails, we are not paid for the time we have spent working on our client’s case. To protect our clients, we ensure that our clients’ CFAs are always supported by after-the-event insurance which covers any liability for disbursements (for example, court and expert fees).
No-win-no-fee agreements help clients fund their legal claims because there is nothing to pay at the outset and no legal bills to pay along the way. There is nothing to pay if the claim fails. If they win, the defendant pays most of the costs, and the client pays nothing until the end of the case.
If an injured child was covered by legal expense insurance at the time that they were injured, their legal expense insurance policy might provide some help with funding their claim. If you are considering bringing a claim for a child you should let us know immediately if you believe you have legal expense insurance.
Claims for children are one of the exceptions to the standard three-year deadline (known as limitation) for issuing proceedings in a personal injury or medical negligence compensation claim.
A child’s claim can be started any time before their 21st birthday. This is because time doesn’t start to run for their claim until they reach adulthood at the age of 18.
If the child’s medical condition leaves them mentally incapable of managing their own affairs at the age of 18, the three-year limitation countdown will never begin. This means that many children with cerebral palsy, neurological damage or brain injury do not have a deadline for making a claim.
Children’s settlements need particular care as children cannot legally decide to make, accept or reject a settlement offer for themselves.
We give our clients’ parents clear and expert advice in relation to settlement of any claim. We also work closely with trusted barristers (often known as counsel), who advise on any settlement from their own expertise. In larger cases, where the settlement provides for lifelong annual payments (PPOs), a financial advisor may also be asked to provide specialist advice.
Before a settlement can be accepted for a child, the court must approve the agreed settlement. Court approval is also needed in fatal cases where part of the compensation for a family’s loss of a parent is to be allocated to the child. Where court approval is needed, the circumstances of the case and the settlement are put before a judge at a short court hearing. The judge must be satisfied that the settlement is in the child’s best interests before the settlement is approved and the claim concluded.
Our medical negligence and personal injury teams have been nationally recognised for over 20 years because of their expertise, empathy and commitment to securing maximum compensation for our clients.
We are extremely grateful for Laxmi Patel’s support in our son’s appeal against the LA that we won! Laxmi has been brilliant in getting us ready for the hearing, coordinating the evidence and the witnesses and arguing in the hearing! We appealed section F and won on all fronts (including inclusion of new outcomes in the EHCP as a consequence of changing provision). Laxmi has been extremely responsive, always on the lookout for strategies to bring us to the best position in SEN tribunal! She has also advised us on school choices and other challenges we had with the LA! She is extremely knowledgeable, approachable and responsive! Thanks so much Laxmi we will be forever grateful!
Laxmi helped with my son tribunal case in regard to section I of his EHCP. Our tribunal got brought forward by 6 months early, not giving us much time to get everything in place. Laxmi was great and said we can do it even with just little time left to get prepared and ready for the Tuesday. As a parent, I didn’t know what we needed to send or do, Laxmi took the time to explain everything to us and what we needed to do to prepare for the tribunal. Laxmi went above and beyond to help us and successfully won getting the school we needed for are son to start in September 2024. I would highly recommend Laxmi to take on the local authority in regard to any EHCP appeals. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.
James Pantling-Skeet helped us prepare my daughter's EHCP to gain a good placement for the future. He was patient, extremely knowledgeable, had brilliant contacts, helped withe emotional upheaval and organised meetings with all parties to keep everything on track. We had the best outcome we could have had due to his professionalism. He was very caring too.
He and his team worked tirelessly and answered our queries promptly. I would highly recommend their service.
We had the pleasure of working with Lydia Dunford at Boyes Turner who guided us through a tribunal with our LA to get our son's EHCP accurately reflecting his challenges (and subsequently the support/setting he needs). Having spent years getting nowhere, Lydia's counsel resulted in a successful outcome, and our son now has a place at the best possible school for him. Lydia is a true SEN expert - she is supportive and explains things clearly and concisely in what can often be an emotional journey for us parents! We highly recommend her and Boyes Turner.
For over a year (maybe even two, time flies!) we have been working with James trying to negotiate a tricky situation with the local authority in relation to the care needs of our child who has complex needs. James and Daisy (paralegal) have been incredible throughout, and we are eternally grateful to them for helping us achieve the outcome we were looking for. Thorough, responsive and ready to roll with every punch that was thrown our way. We would not have the current outcome without them. Their professionalism is unmatched but also their empathy and kindness has been a breath of fresh air and made the process that bit easier.
I would highly recommend James and Daisy, the dream team! Thank you both from the bottom of our hearts.
