A five-year-old girl from Essex has been awarded £1.25 million in damages after suffering brain damages when she was born at the maternity unit in Clacton Hospital.

Local newspaper the Daily Gazette reports that a case was brought against Colchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The court has ruled that the child cannot be named.

The girl’s mother, then aged 21, arrived at the maternity unit in Clacton in May 2004 in the early stages of labour.

She had arrived at around 10.45am, but by 3.10pm complications had set in and she required urgent medical attention.

The unit did not have the necessary equipment or facilities and the girl’s mother was transferred to Colchester General Hospital.

However, the child was born in an ambulance during the transfer ‘in a very poor state’, the court heard. Doctors later confirmed that she had suffered ‘significant brain damage’.

The child’s parents maintain that when the mother was admitted to Clacton’s maternity unit, there were no facilities to cope with emergencies – and had they known this, they would have insisted that the delivery take place at Colchester General Hospital. The family’s legal representatives maintained that had she been delivered at the Colchester hospital, she would have received the treatment she needed.

‘The damage occurred because of lack of oxygen to the little girl’s brain following the complications during labour,’ said the family’s legal representative in court.

‘It took some time for the ambulance to arrive at Clacton and take her mother to Colchester, and so the girl and her mother did not receive the medical attention they so urgently needed.

‘The little girl’s parents remain very concerned that another tragedy like this could occur because of these apparent shortcomings at Clacton.’

Colchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust did not admit liability, but agreed to pay damages – as well as index-linked annual payments currently set at between £96,000 and £130,000, which will rise with inflation and continue for as long as the girl lives.

A spokesman for Colchester hospital, Mark Prentice, said that since the investigation after the girl’s birth six years’ ago, the trust had introduced a range of measures that included improvements to patient records and the introduction of new patient information.

‘There remain significant differences between the parties,’ said Mr Prentice. ‘But the trust acknowledges some failings for which it apologises and, as a consequence, made improvements.

‘We are sorry that this girl sustained a brain injury at birth and wish her and her family best wishes for the future. We are pleased to have been able to reach a settlement.’

© 5r1 Limited 2010