MISTAKES made by staff at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, have led to compensation payouts of more than £12m in the past month.

A disabled man has been awarded won more than £7m after medical complications following his birth at the Oxford hospital led to him needing round-the-clock care.

The award to 24-year-old Nicky Smith - which follows a similar £5m pay-out last month - was made after he claimed the hospital failed to appropriately treat an infection at the time of his birth.

As a consequence, Mr Smith's lawyers said he suffered a severe brain injury and developed spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, leaving him totally wheelchair dependent.

His lawyers said as a result of negligence, Mr Smith - whose family lived on the outskirts of Oxford when he was born and who lives with relatives in a specially-adapted bungalow in Milton Keynes - was severely brain damaged and his ability to communicate was very limited.

The South Central Strategic Health Authority admitted 90 per cent of the liability.

The Royal Courts of Justice ruled that Mr Smith should receive a £2.5m one-off sum and annual payments of £170,000 for the rest of his life - equivalent to more than £7m.

Sue Jarvis, clinical negligence partner at Blake Lapthorn Tarlo Lyons in Oxford, said: "This is an excellent settlement for Nicky because not only will he and his family have the reassurance of annual payments to pay for his care for the rest of his life, but he also has a lump sum to enable him to purchase his property and to pay for much-needed speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and aids and equipment."

The health authority welcomed the settlement, adding: "The hospital works hard to ensure that the quality of its healthcare services continues to improve and that lessons are learned after mistakes are made."

In February, Daniel Godfrey, 12, from Middleton Stoney, was awarded £5m from the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust after being starved of oxygen at birth in the JR in 1995.