Family of girl left brain-damaged at birth accept £28m NHS payout

Ambulances outside Queen's hospital in Romford, where the girl was born in July 2019. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters View image in fullscreen Ambulances outside Queen's hospital in Romford, where the girl was born in July 2019. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters Family of girl left brain-damaged at birth accept £28m NHS payout Mother demands overhaul of maternity care after settling case over birth at Queen’s hospital in Romford in 2019 The family of a girl left brain-damaged at birth have agreed to accept £28m in damages after the NHS trust involved admitted that its mistakes led to the tragedy. Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS trust failed to monitor the baby’s heart rate while her mother was in labour or ask an obstetrician to review the case, either of which might have led to the girl being born in a healthy condition. The girl, who is six, suffered severe hypoxia-ischaemia – loss of oxygen to her brain – while she was being born at Queen’s hospital in Romford, east London , in July 2019. That left her badly disabled. She has epilepsy, experiences unpredictable seizures and is expected to lose mobility throughout her life. She will need lifelong care to help with her cognitive and language impairments. She will also need constant supervision because she has no awareness of danger and is overly friendly with strangers. The settlement was reached out of court after the family brought a lawsuit to the high court. Its large size reflects the high costs of providing the required care and an expectation that she could live to 83. The girl’s mother demanded urgent action by ministers and NHS bosses to overhaul maternity care, which is in the spotlight after a series of scandals at trusts across England . “My daughter is thriving and doing well. But it’s impossible for me to forget that I was robbed of the precious experience of most mothers giving birth by the horror of what happened to us,” said the mother. Neither she nor her daughter can be identified for legal reasons. “Seven years on, I’m still deeply affected by seeing the hospital’s name crop up in the press regarding tragedies for other families and their babies. This is despite the repeated promises of the government and endless reviews into maternity safety. Surely someone must take the bull by the horns and take action to change things.” Two reviews are due to be published this month: the midwife Donna Ockenden’s review of how mothers and babies died or were injured while using maternity services in Nottingham, and the Labour peer Valerie Amos’s government-commissioned review of the state of childbirth services and how to improve them. This week James Murray, who replaced Wes Streeting as health secretary last month, said transforming maternity care was a priority and that services would undergo “comprehensive reform”. He said listening at a meeting of the government’s national maternity and neonatal taskforce to the parents of babies who had died was “horrific”. “This brings it home i