AIBU to think this maternity negligence payout seems disproportionately high

[Sheldonsheher]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9363yynkkdo

Although sad this maternity case award seems really high. Most children with these needs do not get millions to live. Would it not be better to spread such compensation money more fairly over lots of people than give to a small minority who can successfully litigate negligence?

Quite. But that child shouldn't suffer a lifetime with no compensation from the system that is failing and failed.

Apparently not. It’s from the NHS budget, which many people don’t realise

www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/nhs-reforms/nhs-clinical-negligence-reform

its a shit system I agree. I don’t disagree with the fact they got a payout but unfortunately that is x amount less to spend on improving things.

The whole thing needs to be changed

I do think clinical negligence is somehow different to other corporate neglience - and these type of cases may create very high incentives not to admit care could have been better. It may discourage people from certain jobs / roles in medicine etc - especially where as in our current case the underlying funding model may make excellent care difficult.

Its very hard though to think of any other solution because at somepoint clear cut negilence which no society could freely tolerate from its medical professionals especially when they mostly operate under a monolopistic nationalised framework, bleeds into structural poor practice / local poor practice / bad luck etc.

So overall I think we are lucky that we have a court system that tries to mediate these cases and has some logical process for determining where that line sits - in this case neglience was found, and the value of awards to compensate. I am not sure I can think of an alternative, free(ish) from political interference system.

Tell that to the family of the young girl who was disabled for life by their negligence

If the child needs constant 1:1 care 24/7 then that would equate to more than £200k per year.

If she has severe epilepsy, which often happens with brain damage at birth, then there will need to be professionally trained care workers in the home at all times. Plus one of the parents will have to give up work I imagine.

The payment is staggered to reflect that annual cost of care.

I'm not disputing the personal tragedy of course.

it just seems medical negligence is a
minefield it would be cheaper for the nhs if you just died but then the junior medical staff can get charged with manslaughter I suppose.

also most London maternity units are a war zone and badly staffed. Systems don’t work. Equipment doesn’t work the list goes on.

babies should also be able to sue their parents if they insist on a natural home birth and become disabled.

What about the family of the next one affected by a shortfall in the budget?

YABU

Lifelong care will be very expensive