She has taught me to be a better person, more understanding of people’s needs.”The couple also have two younger children, but Tamara demands most of their time and energy. She can’t walk or talk and although she loves her food, every meal time she has to relearn how to swallow I wouldn’t say she was a burden. Four and a half years later, after three weeks in court, the judge ruled against them, describing what had happened as a “tragic mischance” – an act of God, not of a negligent doctor.Mr Hutchinson, who gave up his job as an investment adviser and now works from home as a banking consultant, said: “Tamara is a happy little girl but life is very difficult for her. Tamara’s disability was caused by the forceps used to deliver her which trapped and crushed the umbilical cord, depriving her brain of oxygen.The day after her birth the consultant at the London maternity hospital where she was born told Mrs Hutchinson it was “not the hospital’s fault” To get at the truth the couple decided to sue.

After he won his case in October 1998, his mother, Penny, said she planned to take him to Florida for a holiday. At the time it was a record award for medical damages.The Hutchinsons, who brought the case on behalf of their daughter in 1994, have been saddened and angered by the experience. She goes to a special school, receives the standard social security benefits paid to all disabled people and a few hours “befriending” help from local charities.Sam has round-the-clock care from two full-time professionals, a specially adapted house and a host of special equipment. Both were raised, despite their disabilities, by devoted parents who worked round the clock and made extraordinary sacrifices for their children. Both families went to court to seek compensation to secure the children’s future Sam won and was awarded pounds 3.28m.

Tamara lost and got nothing.
Today, Tamara is still looked after by her parents, Michael and Renate, in their home in Twickenham, south-west London. The increase does not indicate that members of the public have become more litigious or their lawyers, as some would say, more greedy.Henry Dyson is a medical negligence expert and partner at Leigh Day and Co solicitors. THE CASES of Tamara Hutchinson, 10, and Sam Mansell, 12, highlight the gross inequality in the medical negligence system. Both children suffered severe brain damage after being starved of oxygen at birth. The really big awards are made only in the most severe cases, where the claimant will need care for the future or where the injury has caused a partial or total loss of earnings.Damages awards are increasing, but only because the return on investments has declined and so a larger lump sum is needed to cover future care. So, some claims will fail because an error was made but the damage did not come to pass. The court will consider what might have happened inalternative circumstances.Large awards are rare but well reported – in fact, our system is very conservative in terms of damages.

It is not enough to establish a doctor has been at fault – the error must, “on a balance of probablities”, have caused the complaint. The standard required is actually quite low, and so this is often a ground upon whichclaims are defended.Next, a doctor will be found to comment on causation. Then a doctor is called to criticise the care, and try to show that the treating doctor did not provide a legally acceptable standard of care. In other cases, a single consultation or procedure may be closely scrutinised.
“Negligence” hides a number of elements, all of which have to be proved. The lawyer will be concerned with the “standard of care” to which a patient is entitled, whether that standard was breached, and the question of “causation”, which is often the hardest.First the evidence must be gathered, from medical notes that can stretch back years, and may be incomplete.