Parents win claim against hospital for death of baby girl, but warn new plans may deprive families of justice

Proposed changes to the law mean families who lose a child or an elderly parent through hospital negligence will have no means of redress, according to a bereaved Kesgrave couple.

Tom and Vikki King sued Ipswich Hospital after the death of their baby daughter Isabel.They have just won a five-figure out-of-court settlement from the hospital, but claim they may be among the last to be able to sue for negligence in a child’s death if new proposals go ahead next year.

Isabel Niamh King was born in May 2012 at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.She was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and subsequently underwent successful surgery at Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

She was later admitted to Ipswich Hospital on 10 June. Her parents passed on instructions from the Evelina Hospital as to their child’s treatment, and pointed out on numerous occasions that the hospital were expecting Ipswich to contact them.

Yet they failed to do so, Isabel’s condition deteriorated and she subsequently died.

At the inquest into Isabel’s death in October 2013, the Ipswich coroner Peter Dean ruled that there was an obvious breakdown in communication by and within Ipswich Hospital.

The hospital denied any liability for her death and Isabel’s parents pursued the case through the law.The case has just been settled.

But although the hospital agreed to pay the Kings damages, the motive in taking the case to law was not money.They wanted accountability for the mistakes surrounding their daughter’s death, which had been shrugged aside, and win an apology from the hospital.

They fear that this option will no longer be open to families in a similar position because of imminent changes in the law, which will effectively mean they have no access to justice.

The government plans to cap legal costs for lower value clinical negligence claims, such as fatal claims, stillbirth and those concerning the elderly. This could mean solicitors would be unable to pursue them, and families mourning the death of a loved one would be denied justice.

The Kings’ lawyer is medical negligence specialist Sharon Allison of Ashtons Legal.

‘Many of the tragedies revealed by the Mid Staffs scandal might never be pursued if the new proposals go ahead,’ Sharon Allison explains.

‘That’s because the law only allows claimants to demand money, not justice.If the case isn’t worth much in money terms, such as the death of a child, then justice is likely to be denied.

‘We hear so much about the duty of candour and transparency within the NHS, yet as a lawyer of 15 years, I don’t see too much of that on the ground.

‘The reality is that most families have to go to law to get answers, and without their ability to do so there is little prospect of accountability.

‘But if costs are only related to monetary value and not complexity and importance of the issues, then the Kings and other families will be denied any chance to investigate the circumstances of the death of their loved one.’

Peter Walsh from the patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) said:

“This tragic case is a good example of cases that will probably not be able to achieve access to justice if the Government press ahead with controversial plans to cap recoverable costs in clinical negligence. The compensation paid in cases like these is small but getting the right result is vitally important both for the family and if the NHS is going to learn lessons. Because of the complexity and the way the case was dealt with by the defendants, a case like this will necessarily cost a disproportionate amount in legal costs. Restricting the amount of recoverable costs just to a proportion of the compensation (“damages”) paid, will mean many people simply won’t be able to challenge the NHS”.

Details of the proposals won’t be published till the new yea and the government has yet to decide what the cap on legal expenses will be.But Sharon Allison fears it may encourage hospitals cynically to deny responsibility for any negligence claim which falls below a stipulated limit.

‘We could have a situation where hospitals refute claims below a certain monetary level, however serious, because they know there is no way the family can force them to disclose what happened.’

In a statement, Tom and Vikki King say: ‘Our beautiful Isabel died after serious mistakes were made in her care.She wasn’t given treatment that would have saved her life.

‘We wanted her voice heard, to ensure accountability and perhaps a change of procedure, to prevent this devastating loss for another family.

‘Sadly though, accountability apparently means paying out damages, nothing more. Though our claim succeeded, it doesn’t bring Isabel back.

‘Proof is needed before it’s believed that the medical professionals failed.Winning a settlement is proof enough.But the new ruling would strip this legal avenue away from other parents, leaving them living without their child, knowing that others failed and yet being unable to prove it.

‘No lawyer could then take a case such as ours, where the monetary settlement is considered insufficient compared to the costs. Any such case would neatly be brushed away out of sight, and there is no accountability, no transparency and certainly no justice.’

Mrs King gave birth to another daughter in January 2014 and reluctantly she and her husband agreed to have her also delivered at Ipswich.But they found that the problems in communication that led to Isabel’s death still seemed to be present, two years later.

They explained their concerns to their MP, Dan Poulter, who they feel gave them a sympathetic hearing.They now hope to bring before him their new concerns over the changes in the rules.