£4.25m payout over birth blunder

Millie "cannot hold a spoon or sit independently"

The parents of a girl starved of oxygen at birth have been awarded £4.25m in a compensation settlement at a High Court hearing in Birmingham.

Millie Bond, from Wombourne, now six, was left with severe cerebral palsy after mistakes were made at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.

She is confined to a wheelchair and requires 24-hour care.

The hospital trust, which admitted liability last year, says working practices have been changed.

The money can never put things right for our family and give Millie the normal life she should have had Amanda Bond

An interim payout of £1m followed the admission in September last year.

The girl's father, Gary Bond, 40, said a midwife attending his wife Amanda, 36, failed to detect foetal distress and by the time his daughter was delivered her oxygen levels were very low.

The financial adviser, who lives near Broughton, Staffordshire, said it was a relief to have money in place.

But he said he has not had sufficient reassurances from Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust about whether the midwife and other staff on duty during the birth still worked at the hospital or had received retraining.

He added: "I don't know what changes have been made. You get the standard response from the hospital - `we have tightened up procedures'."

The hospital says it has the "deepest sympathy" for the girl

In response, Brian Millar, medical director for Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "A thorough investigation was carried out following the incident and the appropriate action taken.

"We are unable to comment publicly about individual staff, due to confidentiality, other than to say that appropriate measures, including training, were taken.

"Everyone at New Cross Hospital has the deepest sympathy for Millie Bond and her family and apologises for our failure to deliver to her the standard of care and treatment for which we strive."

Millie's mother Amanda said: "The past six years have been a long, hard fight.

"Although the settlement will ensure that Millie will be properly provided for in the future, the money can never put things right for our family and give Millie the normal life she should have had."

Mr Bond said the couple split up a year ago, partly because of the stresses of the long legal battle, and that Millie lived with her mother in Wombourne, Staffordshire.

He added that the girl was a healthy child, and although she could not hold a spoon or sit independently, she was bubbly and could communicate through single words.

Judge Martin McKenna said he felt the sum of compensation was "fair".