The NHS trust which runs Fairfield General Hospital has paid out almost £42m in damages for failings leading to cerebral palsy in the last 11 years, new figures have shown.

A freedom of information (FOI) request submitted to NHS Resolution by Lime Solicitors showed that between the financial years 2012/13 and 2022/23, five NHS trusts in Greater Manchester settled a total of 80 clinical negligence claims related to cerebral palsy.

In total, the five trusts - Northern Care Alliance (NCA), Manchester University, Stockport, Bolton, and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh - paid out £181,383,412 in damages, an average of £2.2m per case, and £29,519,408 in legal fees.

Of these figures, NCA, which runs Fairfield General in Bury, was responsible for 19 claims, which resulted in nearly £42m in damages being paid.

Additionally, the trust paid almost £2m in NHS legal costs and nearly £5m in covering claimant legal costs.

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Heather Caudle, chief nursing officer at the NCA, said:  “We are aware of the claims against our trust and take such matters extremely seriously, continually striving to improve our services.

“At the NCA, our maternity improvement programme is helping to deliver significant service improvements to ensure positive outcomes for our women and babies. These can be seen in the recently published position statement outlining the Greater Manchester commitment to improve services, and the steps and progress already being made.   

“We are committed to fully understanding the circumstances of these claims and focused on providing the best maternity services for the families we serve and the midwifery and obstetric teams who support them.” 

Figures from the FOI also showed that nationally one in every 14 cerebral palsy cases could have been avoided over the past 11 years, with trusts across the country paying out a total of £3.5bn in damages across 1,307 clinical negligence cases, and £490 million in legal fees.

Neil Clayton, medical negligence partner at Lime Solicitors, said: “One of the main causes of cerebral palsy is hypoxic brain injury during childbirth, which is where a baby’s brain gets starved of oxygen.

"Sometimes, this cannot be prevented or it is impossible to work out what caused the child’s injuries. However, negligent mistakes by healthcare professionals can lead to a child sustaining a hypoxic brain injury.

“Errors can include delayed delivery, birth injuries, failing to respond to the umbilical cord being wrapped around a baby’s neck, and missing signs of foetal distress, such as meconium.

"The regularity of maternity ward scandals in the press is alarming, yet wholly unsurprising; negligent injuries resulting in cerebral palsy should not take place and we know the lessons that should have been learned, but unfortunately time and time again, the same mistakes are made.”