A six-year-old girl will receive £28m in damages for brain damage sustained at birth, after the NHS trust that delivered her admitted a series of avoidable failures that left her severely disabled for life.
The out-of-court settlement, approved by the High Court, reflects the high costs of the round-the-clock care she will need for the rest of her life – projected to reach 83. Her family brought a lawsuit against Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust after the girl suffered hypoxia-ischaemia, a loss of oxygen to her brain, while being born at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, east London, in July 2019.
Medical errors that led to the tragedy
The trust admitted that its staff failed to monitor the baby’s heart rate properly during labour and did not ask an obstetrician to review the case. Either intervention, the trust conceded, could have resulted in the girl being born in a healthy condition. Instead, the oxygen deprivation caused catastrophic brain damage that has left the now six-year-old with epilepsy, unpredictable seizures, and a progressive loss of mobility that is expected to worsen throughout her life. She has significant cognitive and language impairments, no awareness of danger, and is “overly friendly with strangers”, meaning she requires constant supervision and lifelong care.
The case is the latest in a long line of birth injury claims that, according to the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, represent “the most catastrophic, life-changing injuries” to babies. Blunders in maternity care account for 11% of all medical negligence damages claims against the NHS in England, but 53% of their total value, because payouts are so high. The average compensation for claims involving cerebral palsy or brain damage is now £11.2m. In 2024/25, payouts for obstetric brain damage claims alone reached £1.1bn, up from £231m in 2006/07. The NHS’s total liabilities for medical negligence have quadrupled over the same period to £60bn, with childbirth injury cases a major driver.
While the £28m settlement is substantial, it is not the largest the NHS has agreed. That is thought to be the £37m paid in 2020 to settle a case involving a boy starved of oxygen during his birth at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. Other recent high-value settlements include £30m for a baby girl with catastrophic injuries at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust in 2024, and £21m for a boy with severe cerebral palsy.
Family’s plea for action
The girl’s mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described the trauma of the birth and the ongoing impact on her family. “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,” she said. “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.”
The mother’s call echoes wider concerns about the pace of reform. Two major reviews are expected to publish their findings this month. Donna Ockenden is leading an independent review into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust – the largest of its kind in NHS history, examining more than 2,500 cases of neonatal deaths, stillbirths and harm. Baroness Valerie Amos chairs a government-commissioned national investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services; her interim report, published in February 2026, highlighted persistent inequalities and “unacceptable care” across England.
James Murray, who became health secretary last month, has said transforming maternity care is a priority and that services will undergo “comprehensive reform”. After listening at a meeting of the government’s national maternity and neonatal taskforce to parents whose babies had died, he described the experience as “horrific”. “This brings it home in the strongest possible sense how human and how devastating this can be, and how important it is that we change,” he said. The government is also planning a “Single Patient Record” system, with initial rollouts expected from 2027, starting with high-priority specialties such as maternity care.
Broader maternity care failures
Jane Weakley, the lawyer from Fieldfisher who represented the family, said her firm frequently takes on cases where “the same terrible mistakes are repeated, bringing untold tragedy”. Fieldfisher is recognised as a leading firm for complex, high-value clinical negligence claims, particularly those involving birth injuries. Weakley’s comments reflect recurring themes identified in multiple reviews: women not being listened to, a lack of kindness and compassion, discrimination, and a reluctance to admit mistakes.
Nic Kane, chief nurse at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust, apologised and said the trust had improved its maternity care since 2019. “We’re extremely sorry the care this child and their family experienced was not good enough,” she said. “We’d like to reassure them, and all our expectant mothers, that since this birth in 2019 we’ve learned lessons, made significant changes and our maternity department has been rated good by the Care Quality Commission.”
The CQC’s overall rating for the trust, which runs Queen’s Hospital, remains “Requires Improvement”. Maternity services at the hospital were rated “Requires Improvement” after a comprehensive assessment in October 2024, but a focused assessment in August 2025 upgraded the service to “Good” overall. However, the “Safe” domain was still rated “Requires Improvement”, and the CQC identified a breach of regulation in the “safe care and treatment” domain relating to incidents and medicines management.
Guy Forster, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, noted that despite countless reviews and initiatives, “we’re not seeing a reduction in avoidable harm. The NHS needs to respond better when things go wrong. Compliance with the statutory duty of candour has been sporadic across trusts. When trusts are not transparent, vital lessons are not learned and the same patterns of harm are repeated again and again.”