Sarah is a senior consultant solicitor in our Medical Negligence and Personal Injury team.
Sarah has over 25 years’ experience exclusively as a claimant clinical negligence practitioner on a wide range of claims, including birth injuries and cases involving severe neurological damage and death after inappropriate or inadequate neurosurgical intervention. She has a particular interest in cases involving maternal deaths and so-called wrongful birth cases arising from antenatal screening and counselling failures.
She is a passionate advocate for patients’ rights and autonomy, with a long-standing interest in consent cases since acting for Janet Birch back in 2008 who suffered a debilitating stroke after undergoing invasive catheter angiography rather than MRI angiography at Queen Square. Birch v University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2008] EWHC 2237, remains an important case about the need to obtain informed consent from a patient. The judgment in the case found that the duty to inform a patient of the significant risks of a medical procedure was sometimes only discharged if the patient was made aware of an alternative procedure with fewer or no risks associated.
Sarah was listed on the Lady Chief Justice’s Pro Bono Recognition List for 2024 for the volunteer work she does through the Islington Free Legal Advice Centre, including the help and support she recently gave to the family at the inquest into the death of Malika Hibu who drowned, age 5, in the Regent’s Canal, after which the Coroner made two Regulation 28 reports for the prevention of future deaths.
