Sorry this is long and I have name changed.
My daughter's birth 5+ years ago should have been pretty straightforward but was nearly catastrophic, due to NHS failings. As it was she was born with significant oxygen deprivation, she was nearly dead at birth, she underwent brain cooling and was in hospital for 3 weeks, with many follow up appointments and tests afterwards. I also suffered a 3b tear and had ongoing treatment for several months.
At the time I didn't know it was the NHS at fault. I had a debrief after about 6 months and was told by the consultant that it was bad luck and these things happen (my pregnancy was midwife led but a consultant was brought in for the debrief). In hindsight I was naive. It was only when HSIB completed an investigation (triggered because of the brain cooling) that I became aware of the failings. It was quite a damning report and there were numerous issues including basic things like not acting on worrying heart rate traces or the fact there was meconium in my waters. It was devastating to find out I'd been lied to. Echoes a lot of the maternity scandals that have come out since except I was "lucky" my daughter lived.
I was very angry at the time and my partner wanted to get a lawyer involved but COVID came (v stressful time for us) and both our parents were unwell, we never did anything in the end. Life moved on although I never felt able to try for another child and don't think I ever will.
Amazingly my daughter is doing really well and thriving at school, although she does have suspected ADHD which may or may not be due to the brain injury. Otherwise you'd never know anything bad happened to her. I still struggle with the psychological impact of her birth from time to time but I lead a good life generally.
Anyway I'd not thought about this much recently until out of the blue I received a letter from the NHS Resolution Scheme acknowledging some failings in care (although not half as many as HSIB raised). It's fair to say I didn't appreciate it arriving out of nowhere 5 years after the birth and 4 since the HSIB investigation, there have been lots of tears over the last couple of days.
I'm just not sure what this means and what, if anything, I should do now. On one hand we've moved on and are doing well. So perhaps there's no case anyway? On the other hand I'm so sick of seeing the same stories as mine in the news, except with tragic endings. I'm increasingly angry that childbirth on the NHS is unnecessarily dangerous and women are disbelieved and gaslighted and I don't know what will change this except holding them to account through legal action. I suppose I want views and advice on how this would pan out if I did go down the legal route.