Child injured in football game awarded compensation

Posted 13/10/2010

A youngster whose serious head injury went untreated after a school football game has been awarded clinical negligence compensation.

Rees Ashwell-Ross, then aged seven, had been playing with his friends at a Lincoln primary school when he clashed heads with another child.

After he began to feel unwell and started vomiting later that evening, the boy’s mother Lisa Ashwell called an out-of-hours NHS service to ask what to do.

She was told to take Rees to hospital the next morning, but he suffered a grand mal seizure a few hours later which caused lasting brain damage and means he now needs a wheelchair all the time.

Through his mother, Rees took legal action against West Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust for negligent delays in treatment and after a High Court hearing last week, he has now been awarded £1.7 million in compensation.

This follows a similar case this month in which Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridgeshire was ordered to pay £2 million to 42-year-old Neal Allen after his cerebral abscess was missed by doctors.

Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp, who heads the medical injury team at Ashtons Legal, comments: “This is the sort of tragic case that some parts of the media seize on to suggest there is a spiralling compensation culture. 

“However, it again raises the serious issue of out-of-hours GP cover and the deficiencies that can and do occur. Hopefully the government’s proposed changes to primary care will include a review of the shortcomings in this area and improvements will be made. Too late of course for Rees Ashwell-Ross.”