Boyes Turner’s neonatal brain injury lawyers secured a liability judgment and £100,000 interim (advance) payment for a child after admissions by two GPs that their repeated failure to investigate the two-month-old baby’s signs of infection led to him becoming dehydrated and suffering a stroke. The stroke caused a brain injury and neurological disability. The young child now has hemiplegia (paralysis/weakness on one side of the body), developmental delay, problems with speech, language, feeding and sleeping, and severe autistic spectrum disorder (ASD/ADHD). When the child’s family asked us to help them, we investigated the medical treatment that he received as a baby during the first few weeks of his life. We sent letters of claim to two GPs who missed multiple opportunities to investigate the baby’s signs of possible infection, including high temperature, feeding problems and weight loss, despite his parents’ repeated requests for help. The two GPs admitted that their failure to investigate and refer the baby to hospital for treatment of his urinary infection led to his stroke and its neurological consequences. The doctors’ admissions enabled us to obtain a liability (fault) judgment, which means we will be able to recover compensation for our client’s disability in full from the GPs’ defence insurers, without pursuing an additional (disputed) claim against the NHS trust whose A&E and paediatric staff also attended the baby during an admission to hospital. The judgment also enabled us to secure an interim payment of £100,000 to meet the child’s immediate need for care and home-based educational support whilst we work with our experts and the family to assess his lifelong needs arising from his physical, cognitive and behavioural disability. The case has been stayed until the child has developed enough for our experts to assess the extent of his future disability. If you or your child has suffered severe injury as a result of medical negligence or you have been contacted by HSSIB/MNSI or NHS Resolution, you can talk to a solicitor, free and confidentially, for advice about how to respond or make a claim by contacting us.
