The aim of compensation in a medical negligence claim is to put the injured person back in the position that they were in before their injury occurred. Whilst we acknowledge that things can never be the same after severe life-changing injury, our...
Specialist birth injury and cerebral palsy solicitor, Susan Brown , has over 30 years of experience in birth injury claims and is recognised by Legal 500 and Chambers Directory as one of the leading medical negligence lawyers in the UK. In...
Mismanaged vaginal breech births , in which the baby is born bottom-first or foot-first instead of head-first, are a common cause of high-value, birth injury compensation claims . As the numbers of vaginal breech deliveries have declined in favour of...
Impacted fetal head (IFH) is a complication of childbirth in which the unborn baby’s head (or fetal head) becomes wedged or impacted within the mother’s pelvis. Traumatic birth injuries from impacted fetal head (IFH) during caesarean births...
Hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a type of brain injury. It is caused by a shortage of oxygen in the blood supply to the brain. Hypoxic brain injury has many causes and can affect people of all ages, but most HIE claims for children arise from ...
When a pregnant woman is advised to have a vaginal delivery after her previous child was born by caesarean section, she must be properly informed and her labour carefully managed to reduce her risk of uterine rupture . Guidelines by the Royal College of...
When a baby is born with hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy ( HIE ) brain injury from lack of oxygen before, during or immediately after birth, the severity of their injury and their chances of survival will determine whether they should be treated with ...
If you’re considering making a compensation claim for a disabled child you might be wondering how much your child’s claim is worth. When caused by medical negligence, serious neurological injuries such as cerebral palsy or other types...
A periodical payment order or PPO is a structured method of paying compensation, commonly used to provide for the lifelong care needs of a severely disabled child in a cerebral palsy , birth injury , or neonatal brain injury claim . A PPO requires the...
When negligent maternity or neonatal care leaves a child with cerebral palsy , the right to claim compensation for their injury belongs to the child. Growing public awareness of patients’ rights to claim for birth injury compensation means that...
If your child has partial or complete paralysis in one arm after a difficult or traumatic birth , they may be suffering from Erb’s palsy , a condition that is commonly caused by negligent birth injury to their brachial plexus nerves. What is the...
Meconium can be both a sign and a cause of oxygen deprivation in a newborn baby. In the absence of careful management during labour and delivery and immediately after birth, meconium can lead to brain injury , cerebral palsy and permanent disability. ...
Syntocinon errors, hyperstimulation and uterine rupture during childbirth can cause severe injury to both mother and baby, and often lead to cerebral palsy and birth injury claims. In recent years, Boyes Turner’s specialist birth injury and cerebral...
If a mother is allowed to drink too much water during childbirth, her blood can become dangerously short of sodium (salt). This leaves both the mother and her new baby at risk of serious neurological injury from a condition called hyponatraemia. ...
As specialist solicitors in high value cerebral palsy claims , Boyes Turner’s specialist cerebral palsy solicitors’ aim is to secure compensation which will meet our clients’ needs throughout their lives. Most of our clients with...
If your child was born with hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) or needed cooling or neonatal intensive care after birth, your maternity hospital may have reported your child’s birth injury to MNSI and to NHS Resolution for investigation under...
Measuring an unborn baby’s heart rate is a good way for a midwife to check the baby’s health during pregnancy and labour. A normal heart rate can reassure the mother’s maternity team that it is safe to continue labour if no other...
When Emma’s* baby was diagnosed with hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) at birth and transferred to another hospital for cooling , this set in motion an HSIB investigation into her hospital maternity care and a referral to the NHS’s...
Leading UK stillbirth and neonatal death charity, Sands, has called for improvements in the information and maternity triage responses that pregnant women and birthing people receive in relation to reduced fetal movements in pregnancy . Fetal movement...
Maternity safety watchdog, MNSI has warned hospitals of an expected increase in referrals to its maternity investigations programme whilst a trial of therapeutic cooling for newborn babies with mild hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) takes place...
The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigation programme (MNSI) has published its 2023/24 Annual Report. The report is MNSI’s first annual review since the maternity safety watchdog began operating independently from the former HSIB in October 2023,...
The NHS’s defence organisation, NHS Resolution have published their annual report and accounts for 2023 to 2024. The report sets out headline figures relating to the number of medical negligence claims received and the compensation that NHS...
The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations programme or MNSI has published its national learning report: Factors affecting the delivery of safe care in midwifery units. MNSI’s analysis of 92 maternity safety investigations carried out...
Former healthcare watchdog, HSIB, has now handed over its patient safety investigations programmes to HSSIB and MNSI. HSIB’s transformation to HSSIB finally took effect on 1st October 2023. This means that HSIB’s national investigations...
England’s healthcare safety watchdog, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), has published its maternity investigations programme’s 2022/23 annual review. The report highlights HSIB’s recent work to identify and alert the...
The NHS’s defence organisation, NHS Resolution, have published their annual report and accounts for the year 2022 to 2023. NHS Resolution’s annual round up sets out the financial cost of harm from medical negligence looking back over the last...
A review by the NHS Race and Health Observatory has found that babies of Black, Asian and ethnic minority ethnicity have a higher risk of delayed diagnosis of serious neonatal conditions which are diagnosed by assessment of skin colour. The...
A report by The King’s Fund has highlighted the need for better support for unpaid carers. The report, Caring in a Complex World , says that each year in England, unpaid family carers provide the equivalent of 4 million paid care workers or 7.9...
Less than two months since the government announced a six-month delay in MNSI’s takeover of Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch’s (HSIB) Maternity Investigation Programme, health ministers have now said that HSIB’s maternity...
The NHS’s defence organisation, NHS Resolution, has published its latest report on the Early Notification (EN) Scheme . The second report: The evolution of the Early Notification Scheme promotes NHS Resolution’s efforts to reduce the length...
Healthcare safety watchdog, HSIB, has reported on a year of maternity safety incident investigations. The report, HSIB maternity investigation programme year in review 2021/22, looks back at HSIB’s investigations into the deaths of mothers, and the ...
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has published its report on the Re:Birth Project which asked women and birthing people, their families and maternity professionals about the type of language that should be used in conversations and clinical records during...
The NHS’s defence organisation, NHS Resolution, has published its strategic plan for the next three years, ‘ Advise, Resolve and Learn ’. For the first time, maternity is at the top of the to do list as a stand-alone strategic...
The final report of the Ockenden Maternity Review has found that Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust ‘failed to investigate, failed to learn and failed to improve and therefore often failed to safeguard mothers and their babies at one of the...
UPDATE - You can now read about HSIB's full report here. HSIB have launched an investigation into the way that ethnicity affects the detection of neonatal jaundice. The healthcare watchdog will explore the safety issues associated with delayed...
Healthcare watchdog, HSIB, have published their latest national investigation report, Emergency neonatal blood transfusion at birth following acute blood loss during labour and/or delivery . The national investigation was launched following...
NHS maternity services in England must stop limiting the number of caesarean sections they perform to meet ‘unsafe’ targets. According to media sources, including The Guardian newspaper and the BBC, a letter from NHS maternity chiefs has asked...
Healthcare watchdog, HSIB, has published its latest national learning report into maternity safety, focussing on the suitability of continuous fetal heart rate monitoring equipment used in pregnancy and labour. HSIB’s report , Suitability of equipment...
Each Baby Counts (EBC), the RCOG’s maternity improvement programme which hoped to halve the number of term babies who die or suffer brain injury during birth, has published its final report. The Each Baby Counts 2020 Final Progress...
The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has published its latest national learning report into maternity safety: Severe brain injury, early neonatal death and intrapartum stillbirth associated with larger babies and shoulder dystocia. The...
The law relating to the amount of compensation that a severely injured person can claim for the extra cost of buying a home suitable for their disability has changed. The Court of Appeal has ruled that claimants whose injuries leave them with special...
This week, the families of babies who died or suffered brain injury as a result of negligent maternity care at two maternity units run by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust begin sharing their experiences with the panel of investigators...
According to the NHS, twin and multiple pregnancies are becoming more common. Today, 1 in 65 births in the UK are twins or multiple babies, compared with 1 in 100 in 1984. Twin pregnancies carry greater risks for the mother and baby than...
We are all familiar with everyday vitamins, such as vitamins A, B, C, D and E, but how much do you know about vitamin K? Most adults who are eating a healthy diet will never need extra vitamin K because their bodies produce enough of it naturally. For...
Former Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has called for an independent enquiry into maternity safety in the NHS. According to The Independent , he is calling for a probe into why poor care and cover-ups are being repeated at different hospitals to find out...
Susan Brown has dedicated her specialist legal career spanning over 25 years to helping brain-injured and severely disabled children and their families rebuild their lives after negligently caused birth and neonatal injury. Nationally acclaimed and...
Over the years, I have helped hundreds of families whose lives have been shattered by their baby suffering a brain injury at birth. With experience, I have learned to recognise mistakes in maternity care, and the types of injury that are caused by many...
Are you confused by neonatal jaundice? If so, you are probably not alone. This is because neonatal jaundice is often described as a common condition which is usually harmless and resolves in a few days, but also as a potentially dangerous condition which can...
The NHS defence organisation, NHS Resolution, claims that its Early Notification Scheme offers support for families of babies who were born at full term but suffered hypoxic (lack of oxygen) brain injury from mistakes in maternity care. Promoted by NHS...
From the moment we agree to pursue a client’s medical negligence case, our focus is on obtaining an admission of liability. This acknowledgement of fault is of the utmost importance to our clients. It recognises that something outside of their control...
