§ GUIDE · AFTER A DEATH

Compensation after a death
caused by negligent care.

No sum makes up for losing someone. What a fatal claim can do is replace the support they gave, cover what their death has cost, and get answers. Here is what it can include, who can claim, and how long you have.

Bereavement award (fixed)

£15,120

Typical overall range

£15,000 – £2,000,000

Time limit

3 yrs from death

Who claims

Estate & family

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§ WHAT A FATAL CLAIM CAN INCLUDE

Four separate parts, added together.

In England and Wales a claim after a death is made under two Acts — the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 for the family, and the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 for the person who died. Between them they cover four things.

Bereavement award

A fixed statutory sum — currently £15,120 — for a spouse, civil partner, cohabiting partner of two years or more, or the parents of an unmarried child under 18. It is the same whoever died and however they died.

Dependency claim

The support the person gave that has now gone: their income, pension, and the practical things they did — childcare, housework, DIY, caring for a relative. For a family that relied on them, this is usually the largest part of the claim by far.

Funeral expenses

Reasonable funeral costs, headstone and related expenses, paid back to whoever met them.

The estate's own claim

Compensation for what the person went through between the negligence and their death — pain, suffering, care they needed, earnings they lost — plus any expenses. It is paid to the estate and passes under their will or the intestacy rules.

§ WHY AMOUNTS VARY SO MUCH

It depends on who was left behind.

The law compensates loss, not the value of a life. That produces results families often find hard: the death of a retired person with no dependants may be worth little more than the bereavement award and funeral costs, while the death of a parent of young children — the same failure, the same hospital — can be worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds because of the income and care the family has lost.

The dependency is calculated from the person’s net income, how much of it went on the family, and how many years it would have continued, with a separate value for the services they provided. Where the person lived for some time after the negligence, the estate’s own claim for their suffering and care can also be substantial.

An inquest does not decide any of this. It establishes the facts of how someone died and can be important evidence, but it does not award compensation — the civil claim runs alongside it, and can start before it concludes.

§ EXAMPLES

Published judgments where someone died.

Real cases decided by the courts, each linked to the judgment. Families rarely reach a public judgment because most fatal claims settle privately, so these show what the courts look for rather than typical sums.

Claim failed

Ritchie v The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

[2026] EWCC 50·2026·Liability decided at trial

A widow brought a dependency and bereavement claim against the hospital after her husband died from an infection picked up during heart surgery. Because he had already settled his own claim in full against the equipment manufacturer while alive, the court held no Fatal Accidents Act claim survived for his dependants.

A dependant's claim under the Fatal Accidents Act only exists if the deceased could still have sued at the moment of death. Settling a claim in the patient's lifetime can extinguish the family's later dependency claim, so settlement terms need careful thought where death is foreseeable.

Claim failed

Runciman v University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

[2024] EWHC 1800 (KB)·2024·Liability decided at trial

A widower claimed that doctors at Southampton General misdiagnosed his wife's rare cerebral venous thrombosis as a stroke, gave her clot-busting drugs and delayed the correct treatment, leading to her death. The judge found the clinicians acted reasonably on the presentation and that even earlier correct treatment would probably not have saved her.

A tragic outcome after a rare condition is missed does not by itself prove negligence; the question is whether a reasonable body of doctors would have acted the same way on the information available. Causation must be proved separately.

Claim failed

Paul and another v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust; Polmear and another v Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust; Purchase v Ahmed

[2024] UKSC 1·2024·Appeal decision

Three families sought damages for psychiatric injury after watching a relative die from a condition that doctors had negligently failed to diagnose. The Supreme Court (Lord Burrows dissenting) held that doctors do not owe relatives a duty to protect them from the shock of witnessing a patient's death or medical crisis.

Relatives who develop a psychiatric illness from witnessing a loved one's death caused by medical negligence generally cannot claim as secondary victims. Their remedies are limited to the Fatal Accidents Act dependency and bereavement claims.

Claimant succeeded

Gbolahan O Somoye v North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust

[2023] EWHC 191 (KB)·2023·Liability decided at trial

Dr Somoye died of abdominal sepsis and multi-organ failure a week after a myomectomy; the trust's own root cause analysis found failures to act on signs of infection and to follow the sepsis pathway, and it admitted liability before proceedings. The court refused to let the trust withdraw that admission and entered judgment for her husband, with damages to be assessed.

A pre-action admission of liability is binding unless the court permits withdrawal, and later-obtained expert evidence will not usually justify that. Failing to follow a hospital sepsis pathway is a recognised basis for a claim.

Claimant succeeded

Davies v Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

[2021] EWHC 169 (QB)·2021·Liability decided at trial

Mrs Davies was admitted to Wexham Park Hospital with pneumococcal meningitis; the trust admitted intravenous antibiotics should have started by 10.40 but were not given until 13.20, and she died two days later. After a causation trial the judge found she would probably have survived with timely antibiotics.

In sepsis and meningitis claims a delay of even a few hours in giving IV antibiotics can be negligent, and the key dispute is often whether the delay changed the outcome. Here the family succeeded, with damages already agreed.

Claimant succeeded£271,901

Justyna Zeromska-Smith v United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

[2019] EWHC 980 (QB)·2019·Damages assessed at trial

The baby died in the womb before induction and the mother had to labour for 18 hours to deliver her stillborn daughter; the Trust admitted negligence. Martin Spencer J found she had a genuine, continuing psychiatric illness and awarded £271,901 in total.

After a negligent stillbirth the main claim is usually the mother's psychiatric injury and its financial consequences, such as lost earnings and treatment. Awards can be substantial but the court scrutinises the recovery prognosis closely, and the parties' valuations here were very far apart.

Contains information licensed under the Open Justice - Licence v2.0. Judgments from Find Case Law, The National Archives. Summaries are ours; amounts only where printed in the judgment.

More payout examples across every claim type →

§ TIME LIMIT

Three years — but from a different starting point.

For a fatal claim the three years usually run from the date of death, or from the date the person bringing the claim first knew (or could reasonably have found out) that negligent care might have caused it. One catch: if the person who died had already been out of time for their own claim before they died, the family’s claim can be barred too — so it is worth checking early, even while an inquest or complaint is ongoing.

Read the full guide to time limits →

§ QUESTIONS

Common questions

What is the average payout for medical negligence resulting in death?

There is no meaningful average, because the largest element — the dependency claim — depends entirely on who relied on the person who died. Where an elderly person with no dependants dies, the claim may be little more than the fixed bereavement award (currently £15,120) plus funeral costs. Where a working parent of young children dies, the loss of their income and the care they gave can run to hundreds of thousands of pounds or more.

Who can claim after a death caused by medical negligence?

The claim is brought by the personal representatives of the estate (the executors or administrators), on behalf of the estate and of the dependants. Dependants include a spouse or civil partner, a partner who lived with the person for at least two years, children, parents and certain other relatives who depended on them financially.

Who gets the bereavement award?

The statutory bereavement award (£15,120 for deaths in England and Wales on or after 1 May 2020) goes to the spouse or civil partner, a cohabiting partner of at least two years, or the parents of an unmarried child under 18. It is a fixed sum and is shared if more than one person qualifies. Nobody else — including adult children — can claim it.

How long do we have to claim after a death?

Usually three years from the date of death, or from the date the person bringing the claim first knew that the death might have been caused by negligent care. If the person who died had already run out of time for their own claim before they died, that can bar the claim, so it is worth taking advice early even while an inquest is ongoing.

Do we have to wait for the inquest to finish?

No. An inquest establishes who died and how, but it does not decide blame or award compensation — that is what the civil claim does. The two run separately. What emerges at an inquest can be useful evidence, and solicitors can represent a family at the inquest as well as in the claim.

Does claiming cost the family anything up front?

The assessment on this page is free, and the first conversation with Tomlin & Partners is free and without obligation. The firm explains how its fees work before the family decides anything.

§ MORE GUIDES

Plain answers to the other questions people ask.

Payout examples →

UK medical negligence payout examples by claim type, typical compensation ranges, and what decides the amount. Then check your own claim free.

Time limits →

The 3-year time limit for medical negligence claims, the date-of-knowledge rule, and the exceptions for children, mental capacity and fatal claims.

How long claims take →

How long medical negligence claims really take, stage by stage, using official NHS Resolution timing data — and what slows a claim down.

Can you sue the NHS? →

Yes — you can claim against the NHS for negligent care. What you have to show, claim vs complaint, time limits, costs, and what compensation covers.

Why claims fail →

Eleven real judgments where the claim failed, and what each one teaches about proving breach of duty, causation and loss in a medical negligence claim.

NHS payout data →

Official NHS Resolution figures, band by band, for 2024/25.

This guide is general information about the law in England and Wales, not legal advice about your case. ClaimGavel is run by Costart Projects Ltd on behalf of Tomlin & Partners, a specialist medical negligence firm regulated by the SRA. The free assessment on this page is an AI overview to show you roughly where you stand; a solicitor confirms the position in a free, no-obligation conversation.