We represented our client in a clinical negligence claim against the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
The claim related to care provided at Booth Hall Children’s Hospital in Manchester in the 1990s. Booth Hall Children’s Hospital no longer existed by the time the Claimant brought the case.
Our client, Natalie Wood, attended the Children’s Hospital many times from the age of 11 after she sustained a leg fracture. She had pre-existing cerebral palsy. Essentially each time she attended, the doctors attributed ongoing pain and problems with her leg to cerebral palsy, rather than the leg fracture, which had not healed. Over a number of years between 1990 and 1994, there were repeated missed opportunities to treat the fracture appropriately with plaster casts and conservative management. Instead, she was given leg irons which she had to wear throughout her childhood and teenage years. The fracture never healed properly and she was left with lifelong physical limitations and pain. It was the case that with the appropriate early management, (which would be quite standard at the time) she would have made a full recovery.
We took on Natalie’s case more than 25 years after the negligence. This was possible because the three-year statutory limitation period only started to run from the date of knowledge, which we assessed to be the date in 2016 when a reconstructive surgeon told her “it to should never have been left as it was” in respect of the treatment she received in the 1990s. By identifying a later date of knowledge of the negligence we were able to bring the claim more than two decades later.
We undertook extensive pre-action investigation, including obtaining disclosure of historical records going back to the 1990s and independent medical expert evidence.
We engaged in out-of-court settlement offers with the defendant’s solicitors and secured a compensation settlement of £160,000 without having to go to trial.
The compensation our client received has meant that she has been able to buy her own home for the first time. She will also have the means to pay for private therapy and private support in her later years if she wishes. In doing so, this will alleviate some of the pressure on the NHS and statutory services. She will also have the means to pay for specialist occupational therapy support when the time is right for her to return to work. She has been unable to work for a couple of years due to the extensive reconstructive surgery she has required as a result of the negligence.
