£14.6m award for child with cerebral palsy will provide care for rest of his life

Denise Stephens helped our client and her son (Baby X) look forward to a brighter future after he suffered cerebral palsy following delays during his birth. Midwives could not interpret the CTG trace correctly and were unaware that Baby X was in distress. That and the additional failure to carry out a timely caesarean section meant there was a delay in delivery.

If hospital staff had monitored the baby’s heart rate properly, the midwife could have identified that he was in distress and that a caesarean section had been carried out. In either event, Baby X would have been delivered much sooner and so would not have suffered cerebral palsy.

Now grown, Baby X cannot speak, dress or feed himself (without the assistance of a machine) and must use a wheelchair. His intellect has remained intact and he communicates through sophisticated eye-gaze equipment. He will however be dependent on others to enable him to carry out the most routine daily tasks for the rest of his life.

The hospital finally admitted liability for causing Baby X’s cerebral palsy seven years after his birth. It took a further six years to fight for damages. The total compensation of £14.6m ordered by the High Court is one of the highest awards for compensation in a cerebral palsy claim in the UK. Although substantial, this amount is needed to ensure there is enough to pay for all of the child’s future needs.