At a hearing at the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Newman described the payout by Lancashire Ambulance Service NHS Trust as “wholly appropriate”. Four years ago, after the birth of her second child, Claire Burchell, now 25, swallowed alcohol with a large number of painkillers. Her husband, Dean, called an ambulance when he found her, still conscious, at their home in Cleveleys, Blackpool.

He said in a statement to the court that it had taken 26 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and that the crew should have arrived in ten minutes but had got lost. There had been a “catalogue of errors” as staff rushed his wife to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, which had led to her suffering a heart attack and permanent brain damage.

Lancashire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, which had agreed to pay the damages to Mrs Burchell to settle the claim, denied any negligence or liability. It admitted that there had been a delay in the ambulance arriving, but said that it was justified.

Simon Maskrey, QC, for Mrs Burchell, who now lives with her family in Milton Keynes, told the judge that she would never work again and that she required 24-hour care. She is confined to a wheelchair with weakness in her limbs, is disorientated and has a memory span measured in seconds or minutes. Her thinking was rigid and simplistic, he said.

The settlement was made soon after a parliamentary select committee inquiry into Britain’s “compensation culture”, and the publication of the Government’s draft Compensation Bill.

David Worsfold, editor of the insurance industry publication Post, who compiled a report after the meetings, told The Times: “That sort of compensation figure is not uncommon. She’s a young mother, she’s going to need care for the rest of her life. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been awarded ten years ago, but the committee found that once these sorts of cases come to court, the results are not usually unreasonable.”

Unreasonable payouts, he said, were more likely when local authorities and organisations failed to challenge compensation claims.

The Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik, who proposed the all-party committee, said: “This is exactly the kind of example of a case that the Government’s compensation legislation is to address. It’s a highly emotionally charged case, but Parliament must find the courage of its convictions.”

After the hearing, Tom Osborne, Mrs Burchell’s solicitor, said: “From the time of the emergency call, it took half an hour for the ambulance service to locate Mrs Burchell, and when they did, they failed to treat her correctly. The family has had to wait four years for an agreed settlement, and after their tragic experience we are relieved they have not had to endure the trauma of a trial.”

COMPENSATION CULTURE

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