Ash Menon | Solicitor

Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust Two children aged 9 and 12 were walking on the street with their father,...

Last week, the clinical negligence case of XX v Whittington Hospital NHS Trust [2020] UKSC 14 reached a landmark decision in the Supreme Court.This is a long-running case, pursued by a claimant who had been left infertile due to the Hospital Trust’s negligence. The Hospital’s Trust admitted liability for a failure to detect the Claimant's cervical cancer from smear tests in 2008 and 2012, and biopsies in 2012 and 2013 and that as a result of the delay in diagnosis, the claimant had been left infertile. The main dispute was whether or not the Trust should have to pay for the costs of a commercial surrogacy arrangement in California, when commercial surrogacy is not legal in the UK and which had previously been rejected by the Court of Appeal in Briody v St Helens And Knowsley Area Health Authority [2001] EWCA Civ 1010, on the basis that this would be contrary to public opinion.

It emerged recently that there were “serious failings” in the care of a mother who died hours after she gave...