TUV (by her mother and litigation friend SIV) v Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Warby |
| Judgment Date | 07 October 2015 |
| Neutral Citation | [2015] EWHC 2829 (QB) |
| Date | 07 October 2015 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ13X02018 |
[2015] EWHC 2829 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Warby
Case No: HQ13X02018
Christopher Hough (instructed by Leigh Day) for the Claimant
Margaret Bowron QC (instructed by Weightmans) for the Defendant
Hearing date: 7 October 2015
Introduction
This is an application for the Court's approval of an agreed settlement of a claim for personal injuries arising from clinical negligence in 2001.
The claimant is a woman of 28, born in December 1986. The defendant is the NHS Trust responsible for the very well-known children's hospital at Great Ormond Street, London (GOS).
The parties have agreed on the sums that should be paid, and on the structure which the settlement should take, but the settlement requires the court's approval. That is because, and only because, the claimant is a protected party. She is protected because, although she is an adult, she lacks capacity to conduct the proceedings. For that reason she has a litigation friend, who is her mother. For the same reason, the rules provide that no settlement shall be valid without the court's approval.
Reporting restrictions and anonymity
There is a standard practice in cases of this kind, which come before the court only for its approval and not for any other decision. The practice is to hold the hearing in public so that all the normally reportable details are available for publication; but to make an order prohibiting the identification of the claimant and her parents. This is because the public interest in open justice in cases of this kind is not strong enough to justify the degree of intrusion into privacy which identification would cause: see JX MX v Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust [2015] EWCA Civ 96.
Mr Hough for the claimant invited me to follow that practice in this case, and I have done so. Before doing so I invited submissions. The defendant made no representations. The media were present at the hearing and I heard representations on behalf of the Press Association. It was pointed out that no notice had been given of an application for reporting restrictions. It was also said that it is difficult for the media to formulate meaningful arguments in the absence of any significant amount of information about the case, which might, for instance, relate to a public figure. These are issues that may deserve consideration for the future.
In this case however the claimant and her family are ordinary private individuals and I am satisfied that there is no such public interest in their identification as would override the general rule in favour of anonymity. I make an order prohibiting the identification of the claimant and her parents as being the claimant and the parents of the claimant, in this case. The claimant is to be referred to as TUV. Her mother and litigation friend is to be referred to as SIV. The final form of the order remains to be settled but in response to concerns expressed by the Press Association I have made it clear that the prohibition on identification is to be qualified so that it will not be a breach to report anything contained in this public judgment.
The facts
The claimant was born on 17 December 1989. She had already suffered substantial injury before her birth. She was one of twins. Her twin died in the womb, when the two were about 29 weeks gestation. This caused circulatory disturbance to the claimant, who was born at about 37 weeks gestation with cerebral palsy.
The claimant was later described as suffering from spastic quadriplegia with a strong dystonic element. She was wheelchair dependent, with significant and persistent movement disorder, and intermittent spasms, which were painful to her and her family. She had no speech, though she was able to communicate with her eyes, using a computer. None of this was the fault of the defendant, and indeed it is not attributable to any negligence by anyone.
The claim arises from events nearly 12 years later, in late 2001. In October 2001 the claimant became unwell, and she was taken to Northwick Park Hospital with suspected fitting. From there, on 3 December 2001, she was taken to GOS for an EEG, accompanied by her parents. About 2 hours after her arrival she was in a state described by a technician as "unrousable but breathing".
The technician brought in two consultants, but within 5–10 minutes of their arrival the claimant suffered a heart attack. The cardiac arrest team arrived some minutes later. The result of this sequence of events was that the claimant suffered significant brain damage.
The claim
The claim is that upon a patient being diagnosed as "unrousable" it was mandatory for the consultants to give oxygen and suction and, at the same time, to make a crash call. This should have happened within 1 minute. If oxygen and suction failed, the consultants should attempt bag and mask ventilation whilst awaiting the crash team. The crash team should have arrived within 3–5 minutes of the call, and on arrival should have intubated the patient.
In fact, it was impossible for the doctors to put in place the appropriate steps at the...
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