The family division
of the High Court heard the couple - who can not be identified for legal
reasons - had successful treatment at a fertility centre but got the paperwork
wrong
A British couple
were told by an NHS hospital they will have to adopt their own child - after
missing out a tick box on a consent form for fertility treatment.
The family division
of the High Court heard the couple - who can not be identified for legal
reasons - had successful treatment at a fertility centre.
Yet bizarrely, after
the child was born, an audit by the clinic found the mum had failed to tick a
box agreeing that her partner would be the legal parent of any child born from
the treatment.
The clinic first
discovered the error in August 2014 - yet the couple did not find out until
March of the following year when they were told they could start proceedings to
adopt their child.
The parents received
their treatment at the Hewitt Fertility Centre, which is part of the Liverpool
Women’s Hospital NHS Trust.
After the parents
took the case to court, judge Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled that the couple
were the legal parents of the child.
In a decision made
on July 5 this year he said: “The distress caused by an unnecessary mistake of
this kind cannot be overstated.
“It has caused this
couple, like others in their position, well over a year of anxiety and led them
into completely needless legal proceedings.”
He added: “The
absence of no more than a centimetre of ink in a tick box is nothing more than
an understandable error.
“The failure to spot
it was highly regrettable, but I have no hesitation in finding that the consent
required by the statute was given, albeit that the form itself was incompletely
completed.”
The court heard the
clinic had audited 178 cases and found four errors in their paperwork - but
only one of the cases had led to the birth of a child.
Mr Justice Jackson
described the small tick box as an “accident waiting to happen”.
He said: “I would
invite the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) to consider
whether this part of the form is not in fact superfluous at best and a
potential trap at worst.”
He said the delay of
eight months in telling the family about the error could not be justified.
He added: “All that
said, this was treatment that was professionally provided in all other respects
and has led to the happiest of outcomes.
“I therefore bring
the proceedings to an end with pleasure.”
A spokesman for the
Women’s said: “Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust is extremely sorry for
our failure to ensure that a consent form was correctly completed in the course
of a couple’s fertility treatment at the Hewitt Fertility Centre in 2009.
“We contacted the
couple involved to apologise and offer them support.
"This has
included assistance with legal costs to enable the non-birth partner to become
the child’s legal parent.
“A rigorous
investigation has examined every aspect of this failure, resulting in
additional training for all staff involved in the process of consenting
would-be parents and their partners.
“We have also added
additional safeguarding checks into the consenting process to minimise the risk
of such an error occurring again.
“We are very aware
of the distress this failure will have caused to the couple. We are delighted
that the court’s recent decision has enabled the non-birth partner to be
recognised as the legal parent
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