A 13 year old girl is expected to be awarded £5.6 million in compensation today for the care her mother received when giving birth. Alice Joyce, from Aylesbury, was born on March 23, 1996 at Wycombe General Hospital and has since needed round the clock care which she will need for the rest of her life.

Her mother, Carolyn, had had a caesarean section delivery with her first child but was not warned by doctors that there was a risk of rupture of the womb if she had a subsequent labour and vaginal delivery. If such a rupture occured doctors would only have minutes to save the lives of the baby and mother.

Chris Joyce, Alice's father, said: "After a tough 9 year battle this award will ensure Alice is looked after for the rest of her life and we are reassured about her future care when we are no longer around.

"Although it sounds like a large sum of money it is needed to fund Alice's round the clock care and ensure she gets as much out of life as her disabilities allow. "Despite the many challenges we face in caring for her, Alice is a happy sociable little girl who gives us so much pleasure.

"It is so sad she will never have a normal life and do all the things we take for granted.

"The NHS continues to pay out considerable sums in these cases, isn't it time lessons were learnt so other people would not have to go through this devastating heartache.

"We would like to take this opportunity to thank Alice's older sister for all the love and support she gives to her and to us.

"We would also like to thank Helen Niebuhr and the legal team at Darbys for their commitment to our case and continued support."

She will receive a lump sum payment of £2,250,000 along with annual payments of £95,000 to the age of 16 and £185,000 after that for the rest of her life.

If given the option, Alice's mother would have chosen a caesarean delivery to avoid the risk.

However, when she went into labour abnormalities showing on the baby's heart monitor were not responded to.

Her heartbeat began to increase with persistent deep decelerations and loss of baseline variablity.

No action was taken to deliver her quickly and she was born several hours later in a very poor condition and not breathing.

Soon after delivery, Alice's mother suffered a massive haemorrhage needing resuscitation and treatment in intensive care.

Alice was admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit and developed fits. Her development was delayed and she was later diagnosed as having spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
She has severe physical problems being unable to do anything for herself and also has severely delayed mental development and learning difficulties.

The evidence was that Alice would have been born healthy and uninjured if she had been delivered by caesarean section, without labour, or if she had avoided the last hour of labour before delivery which was when the damage occurred.

The Trust admitted liability following a detailed letter of claim being submitted by Alice's solicitors Darbys.

The Trust made an interim payment of £2 million in 2008.

The award of damages will be overseen by the court of protection and will be applied to provide Alice with the 24 hour care, equipment, therapies and accommodation she will need throughout her life.

Alice gets particular pleasure and benefit from hydrotherapy and part of the damages award is being applied to build a hydrotherapy pool at her home.

Helen Niebuhr, from medical negligence solicitors, Darbys, the family's solicitor said: "Alice is a beautiful and charming girl who is very aware of her surroundings and close to her devoted parents and older sister.

"However, her life has been restricted to complete dependency on others by the brain damage she has suffered.

"The amount of money she has received seems a huge amount but it is required to pay for the care and equipment Alice will need for the rest of her life.

"Her family would prefer that she had never needed to make this claim and was a normal 13 year old girl looking forward to her future as she should have been.

"The award will provide security for her for the rest of her life."