A Dilema - any advice anyone?

Toto

Personally I would refuse the first offer, ask for X amount as a quick settlement. Most likely they will accept but be prepared to play a bit of a waiting game. The NHS don't like bad publicity and if this goes to court that is what they will get, the very fact that they have offered at all shows they are fairly certain they will lose in court.

If they refuse and go for the trial wait until a couple of weeks before and say you are willing to accept their out of court settlement as the upcoming hearing is too stressful for you. I can't really see you can lose, but, I do know someone who took the NHS to court because they made such a mess of her daughter's birth, perfectly normal baby until delivery, now the child is as handicapped as you can get without being dead, she can't even regulate her own temperature she has to be checked every 15 mins and either have silver blankets put on her or some removed, she is blind and deaf and has no cognitive function other than core brain stem reflexes, in other words, all her brain can do is keep her heart beating and her lungs filling with air etc.

Anyway, she was offered £5,000,000 as an out of court settlement but the solicitor advised the parents to take it into court because a lifetime of round the clock care of that degree costs much more than £5,000,000, they went to court and the judge gave them just under £2,000,000 which was shocking really.

I personally wouldn't take the gamble in court but I would try it on a bit first, I highly doubt that the NHS would refuse to pay out their initial offer, in fact I would think they would be asking you at that stage to re-consider the offer.

Let us know how you get on x