Children injured by NHS negligence can now claim lifetime earnings after a Supreme Court ruling that changes how compensation is calculated.
As reported by the BBC, the judgment means damages will reflect a full working life rather than only the years a child is expected to live.
Until now, injured children were compensated for lost earnings only up to their predicted life expectancy. The case concerned a girl who suffered a brain injury at birth.
Born in 2015 at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, she experienced abnormal heart monitoring during labour that was not acted on.
She was born with signs of oxygen deprivation, required resuscitation and later scans confirmed a severe hypoxic brain injury. The Trust admitted failures in her care.
She has severe cerebral palsy, cannot walk or speak, has severe visual impairment and epilepsy, and needs round-the-clock care.
In 2023, the High Court awarded a lump sum of £6,866,615 plus £394,940 per year, linked to inflation, covering care costs and loss of earnings up to age 29, her estimated life expectancy.
The Supreme Court has now ruled, by a majority, that damages should include her full lifetime loss of earnings and pension for the working life she would have had.
It was agreed by both sides that without the injury she would likely have achieved GCSEs, worked until 68 and received a pension.
The additional damages will be decided later, with the family’s lawyers saying the figure exceeds £800,000.
The ruling aligns the law for injured children with that already applied to adolescents and adults with life-shortening injuries, who can claim for “lost years”.
The court said there was “no basis in law” for treating injured children differently.
The girl’s mother said: “I feel elated that my little girl has changed the law and that this will help lots of other children who have been injured through no fault of their own.”
The decision may have financial consequences for the NHS. Clinical negligence liabilities currently total around £60bn, with roughly two-thirds linked to maternity cases.
About 250 cases of brain injury during childbirth are reported to the NHS in England each year.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said the NHS should make greater use of mediation.
He said families often want “a simple explanation and an apology, and their cases considered properly by the complaints procedure”.
He added that court cases can take years, increase stress for families and lead to significant legal costs that could otherwise fund care.
The NHS must also “seriously learn lessons” to reduce clinical negligence, which causes “devastation” for children and their families.
