NHS trust pays

Posted 27/05/2010

An NHS trust has agreed to a £9.7 million payout for a child left badly disabled by injuries he sustained at birth.

Lewis Merrigan, now eight, was born at Northamptonshire General Hospital in 2002.

However, medical staff did not deliver him quickly enough after he got into difficulties and he was starved of oxygen.

Consequently, the child is unable to sit up unaided and suffers from daily epileptic fits. He will need constant care for the rest of his life and had to relocate from Daventry to a special school in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Through his family, Lewis lodged a claim for compensation against Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust and the organisation has now agreed to the £9.7 million to cover his long-term care needs.

Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp, head of the Clinical Negligence team at Ashtons Legal, comments: “An award of this magnitude represents a case of catastrophic injury and will no doubt help to provide very much needed care and aids and equipment. It can never though truly compensate for the harm done to the life of the child and his family.”

According to the Centre for Neuro Skills, more than 1,000 babies every year in Britain sustain brain damage because they are starved of oxygen around the time of their birth.