By Jo Jeffries. Last Updated 14th April 2022. Welcome to our guide on how a child brain injury lawyer could help you get the compensation you’re entitled to. Below we answer questions such as ‘can a child recover from traumatic brain injury?’ and ‘How do I know if my child’s head injury is serious?’ and well as explaining how we could find brain injury lawyers for you or your child.
If your child has suffered a traumatic brain injury, then this can have a big impact on the things they are able to do and the level of care they require. What’s more, brain injuries can have a detrimental effect on the injured person’s quality of life.
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Child brain injury lawyer guide.
If your child’s brain injury was caused by the negligence of someone who owed them a duty of care, then you may be able to claim. We’ll discuss the situations in which your child might be owed a duty of care later on in this guide.
Furthermore, you may have the best chance of receiving compensation by using a child brain injury lawyer. The lawyers on our panel have years of experience working on brain injury claims and could help you get the compensation you deserve.
How Much Could You Claim For A Brain Injury To A Child?
In this guide, we will begin by looking at what a brain injury is and what the signs of a brain injury in a child are. We’ll go on to look at how these kinds of injuries can be sustained.
We’ll then look at the complications that brain injuries can cause in children and the kind of long-term care that might be appropriate for an injury of this nature. Furthermore, we’ll examine how child brain injury claims can be valued and the different kinds of things that could be covered by a claim.
Helping find Brain Injury Lawyers For You
Our advisors offer free legal advice, so if you have any questions or queries, please get in touch with us using the details below.
- Call us now using 0800 073 8801
- Email us with your injury details using office@accidentclaims.co.uk.
- Use the Live Chat window on the right-hand side of your screen.
- Contact us on our website.
To find out more about the signs of a brain injury in your child and whether you’re able to claim, please read on.
Select A Section
- A Guide On How Much A Child Brain Injury Lawyer Could Help You To Claim
- What Are Child Brain Injuries?
- What Are The Symptoms Of Child Brain Injuries?
- Causes Of Child Brain Injuries
- Types Of Child Brain Injuries
- Brain Injuries During Childbirth
- Possible Complications Caused By Brain Injuries
- Long-Term Care And Recovery
- Child Brain Injury Compensation Calculator
- What Further Damages Are Claimable?
- No Win No Fee Child Brain Injury Claims
- Why Choose Us To Claim With A Child Brain Injury Lawyer?
- Get In Touch With A Child Brain Injury Lawyer
- Useful Brain Injury Claim Resources
- How Many Children Are Affected By Brain Injuries?
- Child Brain Injury Lawyer FAQs
A Guide On How Much A Child Brain Injury Lawyer Could Help You To Claim
In order to make a successful personal injury claim, you need to be able to prove that third party negligence caused the injuries in question. Some third parties have a duty of care to you. If they’ve acted in a way that breaches this duty, this is an example of negligence.
However, in order to claim, all three of the below statements need to apply to your child’s injury:
- The third party had a duty of care towards them.
- Their actions breached this duty of care.
- This breach led directly to their injury.
If you’re able to prove all three of the above, your claim could be successful. This guide will explain in more detail how medical professionals could breach their duty of care and the circumstances in which you could claim for signs of a brain injury in your child.
For more information, you can either contact us via our website or call us 24/7 using the details above. Our advisors can help with any questions you have and can also give you a reliable compensation estimate over the phone.
What Are Child Brain Injuries?
A child brain injury can greatly affect their quality of life, either temporarily or permanently. In some cases, it can leave them unable to lead a normal life, or they may require professional medical help to perform certain tasks or activities.
Some brain injuries, on the other hand, might be relatively minor and have little or no impact on your child’s cognitive abilities or personality. However, if you can show that your child’s quality of life has been affected negatively because of a brain injury caused by negligence, you may still be able to claim.
There are a number of different ways a child or adult could sustain a brain injury. For instance, they may suffer a blow to the head that causes a skull fracture, which in turn damages the brain. On the other hand, they may suffer from a lack of oxygen which stops the brain from functioning normally.
Later on in this guide, we’ll take a closer look at how a brain injury could be caused by negligence. In the meantime, read on for more information about the symptoms of child brain injuries. You can also call us for free legal advice about claiming.
What Are The Symptoms Of Child Brain Injuries?
Traumatic brain injury in your child can cause a wide range of symptoms depending on how extensive the damage is and what part of the brain is injured. For a mild child brain injury, symptoms include:
- A swollen area if they’ve suffered a bruise or bump.
- Headache
- Balance issues
- Confusion or disorientation
- Nausea
- An inability to concentrate/problems with memory
- Blurred vision
- Lethargy or fatigue
For a moderate to severe brain injury, however, symptoms can be more permanent and potentially even life-threatening. They include:
- Loss of consciousness
- Slurred speech
- Difficulty walking
- Seizures or convulsions
- Severe and painful headaches that don’t go away
- Behaviour changes
- Clear fluid or blood coming from the nose or ears
Further complications from these types of injuries could include your child being in a coma, a vegetative state or suffering from locked-in syndrome. In some cases, brain damage can even be fatal. For more information on how a child brain injury lawyer could help you, get in touch with our team today.
Causes Of Child Brain Injuries
There are many potential causes of a child brain injury. They include:
- Road traffic accidents. Road users owe one another a duty of care to ensure the safety of everyone on the road, as outlined in the Highway Code. If this duty is breached and your child suffers a brain injury as a result, you may be able to claim.
- A slip, trip or fall. This kind of accident could be caused by a breach of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. This legislation outlines the duty of care owed by those in control of public spaces towards those who use them.
- Medical negligence. This is where a medical professional provides a level of care that isn’t of an acceptable standard, causing injury as a result. For example, your child could sustain birth injuries that cause brain damage if the medical professional is negligent.
- Hydrocephalus. This happens when excess fluid causes pressure on the brain. This pressure can cause a brain injury.
- Hypocarbia. This is caused by insufficient carbon dioxide in the blood.
- Jaundice. This is a common affliction in newborn babies. When it’s untreated, it can lead to a complication called kernicterus. Kernicterus occurs when excess bilirubin in the blood damages the brain.
The Child Brain Injury Trust are a charity that deals specifically with injuries of this nature. This includes providing a child brain injury rehabilitation service. To learn more about how they could help you, visit their website.
Our advisors are more than happy to help if you have more queries about brain injury claims. If you’re wanting to see if you can claim or how much you could receive, give us a call 24/7 for free legal advice using the details above.
Types Of Child Brain Injuries
Child brain injury is an umbrella term that covers a number of different kinds of injuries. Some of these can be caused by a physical injury to the brain. For instance, a skull fracture might cause a piece of the skull to pierce the brain, damaging it. Other kinds of brain injuries can be caused by diseases like meningitis.
Examples of the different types of injuries include:
- Hematoma
- Contusion
- Intracerebral haemorrhage
- Subarachnoid haemorrhage
- Diffuse injuries, such as hypoxia, meningitis and blood vessel damage.
- A diffuse axonal injury, which is an injury that leads to the tearing of the brain’s connecting nerve fibres.
- Ischemia is caused by blood flow (and, therefore, oxygen) being restricted
- A Coup-Contrecoup injury. This kind of injury is actually made up of two separate brain injuries. One is created directly at the point of impact, while the other is created at the opposite side from where the brain was struck.
The extent of the damage in these kinds of injuries can be determined when through diagnostic tests. For example, a medical professional may arrange for a CT scan to be done to determine where in the brain the injury has occurred.
Brain Injuries During Childbirth
As previously stated, to make a successful personal injury claim, you need to prove that third-party negligence led to the injury you’re trying to claim compensation for. For example, your child may have suffered a brain injury during birth, which you feel was caused by medical negligence. This could lead to a mild traumatic brain injury in your child. On the other hand, it could cause severe and permanent health issues.
Medical negligence is where a medical professional provides you with a level of care that is below the standard expected of the profession. We must note that not all instances of birth brain injuries will be related to medical negligence. It’s possible for a doctor, nurse or midwife to provide the right level of care and for an injury to still occur despite this.
Determining whether or not a healthcare provider has been negligent can be hard. For this reason, the courts will often use a test called the Bolam Test. This is where a panel of the medical professional’s peers are asked if the care provided was of an acceptable level. If not, then the care would be considered negligent.
What brain injuries could be caused by childbirth?
An example of a brain injury your child could suffer as a result of negligence in childbirth is cerebral palsy. This is a group of permanent conditions that affect coordination and movement. Symptoms of cerebral palsy include:
- Weak legs or arms
- Delays in reaching particular development milestones. This can include, for instance, your child not walking by the age of eighteen months.
- Difficulties being able to swallow.
- Learning disabilities or difficulties
- Uncontrolled body movements
A pediatric traumatic brain injury assessment will usually be able to diagnose if your child suffers from this condition. For more information on whether you could claim for your child’s injuries, speak to a member of our team today. You could be connected with a child brain injury lawyer from our panel to work on your claim.
Possible Complications Caused By Brain Injuries
There are a number of complications that you could experience as the result of a brain injury. It can sometimes be difficult to predict what kinds of complications could arise because of the complex nature of the brain.
The Child Brain Injury Trust offer a child brain injury rehabilitation service that could help you learn to manage the injury’s complications. Examples of complications include:
- Swelling of the brain, which can lead to intracranial pressure (or ICP).
- Seizures or fits. Your child can be given medication that could help reduce the frequency and severity of the seizures.
- If the skull or skin has been broken, they could also be at risk of infection.
You may feel as if these complications have been created or exasperated by medical negligence. If this is the case, you may be able to claim for the harm caused to your child by the healthcare provider who acted negligently.
Get in touch with us today for more free legal advice. You could receive a free, no-obligation assessment of your claim.
Long-Term Care And Recovery
There will be a rehabilitation team for your child, so they can gradually recover from the injuries or adapt to the changes caused by them. Depending on the extent and severity of the injury, your child may require:
- A speech therapist. If your child has needed to be fed through a tube, this can result in them struggling to swallow and can also affect their ability to talk and eat. A speech therapist could help them with this.
- A physiotherapist. They will help assess any problems with balance your child may have. They can also determine if they’re suffering from any movement restrictions caused by the injury.
- Occupational therapists. They can offer advice about the practicalities of everyday life and how to cope with your child’s injuries. For example, they can advise about dressing or washing your child.
- A social worker to help with the transition of leaving the hospital. For instance, they can liaise with schools, employers or other professionals and advise on childcare issues.
The rehabilitation team also realise that your child will need a routine as a means of recovering and coping with the head injury. Therefore, after the pediatric traumatic brain injury assessment, they will help establish a daily timetable for your child, including regular rest periods, if possible.
To claim for a child injury successfully, you need to be able to prove that third party negligence led to their injury. You can use a specialised child brain injury lawyer to help you. If you have more questions about how the claims process works, please contact our advisors 24/7. You can reach them using the contact details above.
Child Brain Injury Compensation Calculator
You may be wondering, “in child brain injury claims, what kind of things can I claim for?”. There are two potential heads of claim. The first of these is called general damages, and this covers you for the physical pain, psychiatric suffering and loss of amenity caused by the injuries.
The general damages that you receive will be valued with the help of guidelines provided by the Judicial College. The Judicial College analyses payouts based on the nature and severity of the injury. As a result, they’ve been able to create reliable compensation brackets to show you the amount of compensation you could receive.
As part of your child’s claim, they will usually be invited to a medical assessment. Here, an independent expert will assess your injuries and determine
We’ve included a list of brain and head injuries and their respective compensation brackets below. These figures have come from the Judicial College Guidelines.
| Area of Injury | Amount of Compensation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Brain | £205,580 to £264,650 | In cases within this bracket, the injured person will be very seriously disabled. They will be dependent on others and need full-time care. |
| Brain | £264,650 to £379,100 | In very severe cases of brain damage, the injured person may have some ability to follow basic commands and return to a normal sleep/wake cycle. However, they will be unlikely to have any language function and will require nursing care full-time. |
| Brain | £9,990 to £24,680 | Beyond one or two discreet epileptic episodes or a temporary resurgence of epilepsy, there will be no more risk of further recurrence than that of the population overall. |
| Brain | £51,460 to £123,340 | The level of award within this bracket will be impacted by things like the effect on work and social life, the extent to which medication blunts the injured person’s appreciation of life and whether this medication successfully controls attacks. |
| Brain | £95,710 to £140,870 | The injured person will suffer from established grand mal seizures. |
| Brain | £140,870 to £205,580 | Cases in this bracket usually involve a change in or impact on personality, an intellectual deficit that has a moderate to severe impact, an effect on speech, senses and sight that is detrimental. A significant epilepsy risk and lack of employment prospects will also occur. |
| Brain or Head | £2,070 to £11,980 | If there is any brain damage at all, it will be very minimal. The award within this bracket will take into account how persistent the symptoms are and the extent to which they are felt. |
| Brain | £14,380 to £40,410 | While all normal functions may not be restored, a good recovery will be made and the injured person will be able to return to work and have a good social life. |
| Brain | £40,410 to £85,150 | While dependence on others will be limited, the injured person’s work capabilities will be reduced, there will be a small risk of epilepsy and problems with concentration and memory will persist. |
| Brain | £85,150 to £140,870 | Any impact on intellect will be moderate to modest, there will be a significant reduction in the ability to work and some risk of epilepsy. |
We completely understand if you’d like a compensation estimate for the traumatic brain injury to your child, that takes into account their individual circumstances. This is something we can provide; all you need to do is get in touch with our team. We can give you a reliable estimate in just a few minutes.
What Further Damages Are Claimable?
Special damages can greatly increase the amount of compensation you could receive from a child brain injury. This is because they relate to the financial losses suffered as a consequence of the injury. Examples of what you could claim include:
- Loss of earnings
- Care costs, such as needing to pay for a nurse or carer
- Private healthcare, such as physiotherapy sessions that you cannot get on the NHS
- Prescriptions or medicine costs
- Travel costs. For example, you might have to pay to get to and from medical appointments.
You will need to prove the losses you’re looking to claim. Evidence you’ll need to do this includes receipts, invoices and bank statements.
You might be wondering how long you have to make a claim for compensation. You would usually need to start a personal injury claim within three years. However, for a child claim, the time limit is suspended until their 18th birthday, at which point they have 3 years to pursue their own claim. You can also claim on their behalf by being appointed their litigation friend, and the time limit is suspended until they’re able to claim themselves.
No Win No Fee Child Brain Injury Claims
You may be wondering, “what are the benefits of using a No Win No Fee child brain injury lawyer?”. The benefits of this kind of agreement include:
- Not having to pay legal fees, either upfront or during the claims process.
- Not having to pay legal fees if your claim is unsuccessful. This is why it’s referred to as ‘No Win No Fee’.
- Instead, legal fees are paid from the lawyer taking a small, legally capped compensation portion once your claim has been successful.
Our personal injury lawyers can offer representation on a No Win No Fee basis. First, though, they would need to know that you have a strong claim. Get in touch with our claims team today for a free, no-obligation assessment of your case.
Why Choose Us To Claim With A Child Brain Injury Lawyer?
Our advisors are available 24/7, offer free legal advice and can let you know in just a few minutes if you’re eligible to claim. They can also provide you with a reliable compensation estimate over the phone. What’s more, they can then put you through to a No Win No Fee child brain injury lawyer to help build your case.
Our specialised personal injury lawyers have years of experience in child injury claims. They will be diligent, professional and hard-working. They appreciate that this could be a very difficult time for you and will help any way they can to give you the best possible chance of receiving compensation.
Get In Touch With A Child Brain Injury Lawyer
We hope that you’ve found this guide helpful. If so, and you would like to be connected with one of our child brain injury lawyers, get in touch with our team at your earliest convenience. You can:
- Call us now using 0800 073 8801
- Please email us with your injury details using office@accidentclaims.co.uk.
- Use the Live Chat window on the right-hand side of your screen.
- Contact us on our website.
Useful Brain Injury Claim Resources
To know more about child brain injuries, please use the links below.
Visit this NHS webpage to learn more about severe head injuries.
To learn about treatment for traumatic brain injuries, visit this page.
If you want to learn more about the characteristics of mild traumatic brain injuries, our guide could help.
Do you want to see if you can claim for medical negligence after you were given the wrong prescription? If so, you may find out guide useful.
You could claim on your child’s behalf if they’ve been the victim of a birth brain injury. Read our guide to learn more about claiming.
If you’ve suffered a heart attack leading to brain injury, read our guide to see if you can claim.
How Many Children Are Affected By Brain Injuries?
The brain charity, Headway, provides statistics concerning hospital admissions for acquired brain injuries in women in the UK. As you can see from the latest statistics above, from 2012-13 to 2016-17, hospital admissions for acquired brain injuries women have numbered over 150,000 per year. In total, this comes to 773,131 people who attended hospitals with acquired brain injuries.
These amounts also equate to children meaning that a portion of these figures could be related to the kind of child brain injury you’re looking to claim for. However, these statistics don’t show us the rate at which children specifically were admitted to hospitals with ABIs.
If your child has suffered an injury due to someone else’s negligence, you may be able to claim, regardless of whether it’s from a road traffic accident or medical negligence. You won’t know unless you give us a call. Please do so using the phone number at the top of this page.
Child Brain Injury Lawyer FAQs
Please see below for answers to frequently asked questions about traumatic brain injury in your child.
Who could claim for a child brain injury?
You can claim on your child’s behalf for a brain injury or any injury caused by third party negligence. This would involve becoming their litigation friend. You can become a litigation friend regardless of your relation to the child as long as you can show you are able to act in their best interests.
What does a litigation friend do?
A litigation friend claims on behalf of someone unable to. This can include children, but a litigation friend can also represent someone who lacks the mental capacity to pursue their own claim.
How long do claims take?
The length of a personal injury claim depends on the case’s complexity and whether the third party is willing to accept liability. Simple claims could be resolved in a matter of months. However, more complex claims can take longer.
Could you secure an interim payout?
An interim payment will only be made by a third party who has already accepted liability. While the settlement is being finalised, they can issue interim payments to you that will then be taken off the final compensation amount.
Can a child recover from traumatic brain injury?
A traumatic brain injury could cause significant alternations to a child’s emotional, cognitive and physical functions. In some cases, functions affected by a traumatic brain injury could be recovered. However, in others, the damage to a brain cannot be reversed.
How do I know if my child’s head injury is serious?
There are various signs that could mean your child’s head injury are serious. The NHS advises you to seek help at A&E if your child is experiencing any of the following symptoms:
- They have vomited after a head injury
- Their headache isn’t relieved by painkillers
- They were knocked unconscious
- Their behaviour has changed
- They’re crying more than usual
- They have a blood clotting disorder
- They’re having issues with memory
- They had brain surgery previously
Can Accident Claims UK. find brain injury lawyers for you?
Accident Claims UK could find brain injury lawyers for you if you’ve suffered a brain injury from someone’s negligent breach of their duty of care to you. We could also find brain injury lawyers for you if you’re claiming as a litigation friend for a child. Please call us to discuss your case in confidence.
We could assess you or your child’s case to see if it could have a favourable chance of succeeding. If so, we could provide you with a No Win No Fee lawyer to help you.
What treatments are there for traumatic brain injury?
You should consult with your doctor for more information on how a traumatic brain injury can be treated. The treatments you could receive could vary depending on the injury’s effects on you and what you struggle with post-injury
Thank you for reading our guide on how a child brain injury lawyer could help you.
