§ NHS · COMPENSATION · 2024/25

NHS compensation,
band by band.

What successful claims actually pay, from the 6,888 NHS claims that settled with compensation in 2024/25. About 50% settle for £25,000 or less, one in five pays over £100,000, and the most serious run into millions.

Claims paid compensation

6,888

Total paid out

£3.1B

Average successful claim

£446K

Paid over £100,000

1 in 5

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§ WHAT SUCCESSFUL CLAIMS PAY

Ignore the “average payout”. Look at the spread.

Successful medical negligence claims range from a few thousand pounds to many millions, so a single average tells you almost nothing. The mean is dragged far above the typical claim by a small number of catastrophic cases.

These are the 6,888 NHS claims that settled with compensation in 2024/25.

Settled at £25,000 or less

50%

Average successful claim

£446K

Paid over £100,000

1 in 5

Paid over £1M

1 in 23

The mean is far above the median because claims of £4.3M and over are 1.2% of all claims but 51% of all the money paid.

§ BY CLAIM TYPE

Typical ranges for a successful claim.

What each kind of claim usually settles for when it succeeds. The bottom of a range is a modest injury with a full recovery; the top is a life-changing one needing lifelong care. Your own figure depends on the outcome, not on how serious the mistake looks.

Claim typeTypical range when successful
Cerebral Palsy£5,000,000 – £25,000,000Details →
Birth Injuries£500,000 – £15,000,000Details →
Neonatal Injury£250,000 – £10,000,000Details →
Brain & Spinal Surgery Negligence£100,000 – £5,000,000Details →
Cauda Equina Syndrome£100,000 – £2,500,000Details →
Clinical Negligence£25,000 – £2,000,000Details →
Erb's Palsy£50,000 – £2,000,000Details →
Anaesthetic Negligence£15,000 – £2,000,000Details →
Fatal Medical Negligence£15,000 – £2,000,000Details →
Surgical Errors£10,000 – £1,500,000Details →
Misdiagnosis & Delayed Diagnosis£50,000 – £1,500,000Details →
Cancer Misdiagnosis & Delayed Diagnosis£30,000 – £1,500,000Details →
Vascular Negligence£50,000 – £1,500,000Details →
Cardiac Negligence£30,000 – £1,500,000Details →
Sepsis Negligence£25,000 – £1,000,000Details →
A&E Negligence£10,000 – £1,000,000Details →
Orthopaedic Negligence£15,000 – £1,000,000Details →
DVT & Blood Clot£25,000 – £750,000Details →
GP Negligence£10,000 – £500,000Details →
Maternal Birth Injury£20,000 – £500,000Details →
Stillbirth & Neonatal Death£50,000 – £250,000Details →
Urology & Catheter Injury£10,000 – £250,000Details →

Ranges reflect UK settlements and awards for each claim type and are a guide, not a valuation.

§ BAND BY BAND · CLAIMS THAT PAID

What the claims that paid actually settled for.

Every figure below is for claims that settled with compensation. The right-hand column is each band’s share of all the money the NHS paid out, which is where the concentration at the top becomes obvious.

Compensation bandClaimsShare of paying claimsTotal paidShare of all money
£1-£1,5001732.5%£2.0M0.1%
£1,501-£25,0003,26547.4%£144.6M4.7%
£25,001-£50,0001,19117.3%£116.9M3.8%
£50,001-£100,00084112.2%£134.6M4.4%
£100,001-£250,00069610.1%£218.6M7.1%
£250,001-£500,0002503.6%£167.8M5.5%
£500,001-£1,000,0001752.5%£217.0M7.0%
£1,000,001-£2,000,000911.3%£216.1M7.0%
£2,000,001-£4,249,999510.7%£271.1M8.8%
£4,250,000+1552.3%£1.6B51.4%

Not every claim succeeds: of the 13,329 claims settled in 2024/25, 6,441 closed without a compensation payment, and those are excluded here. Why claims fail.

§ WHAT THOSE BANDS LOOK LIKE IN REAL CASES

Published judgments, with the sums the courts actually stated.

Bands are abstractions. These are real cases from the courts of England and Wales, each linked to its judgment, grouped by the band the stated figure falls into.

£4,250,000+

Settlement approved£5.75M

AXA (a child, by her father and litigation friend MXA) v Airedale NHS Foundation Trust

[2024] EWHC 2499 (KB)·2024·Settlement approved by the court

A child born in April 2019 after an induced labour suffered fetal bradycardia and a brain injury; the Trust admitted the clinical failures by letter in April 2021. The court approved a settlement of a £5.75m lump sum plus lifelong index-linked periodical payments, worth about £16.7m in total.

Serious cerebral palsy claims are usually settled as a lump sum plus annual periodical payments for care, so the headline total depends on how long the child lives. Before approving a deal for a child the judge checks it sits within the range a court would have awarded.

Settlement approved£5.56M

MHE v Wye Valley NHS Trust

[2024] EWHC 25 (KB)·2024·Settlement approved by the court

The baby's shoulders became stuck during delivery and manoeuvres failed, so she was deprived of oxygen and left with cerebral palsy; the Trust admitted in 2012 that it failed to deliver her with sufficient or safe speed. The court approved a settlement of about £5.56m plus lifelong periodical payments.

Shoulder dystocia claims are not only about arm injuries; a prolonged delay in freeing the baby can cause brain injury, and damages then reflect lifelong care needs. Approval judgments like this are one of the few public sources showing what such settlements are worth.

Claimant succeeded£6.87M

CCC (suing by her mother and litigation friend MMM) v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

[2023] EWHC 1770 (KB)·2023·Damages assessed at trial

The CTG showed a pathological trace that went unread for 50 minutes before an emergency caesarean; the child was born with severe quadriplegic cerebral palsy and the Trust admitted liability in 2019. After a nine-day trial on damages, Ritchie J awarded a lump sum of about £6.87m plus care periodical payments of nearly £395,000 a year.

Where liability is admitted but the parties are far apart on the cost of care, housing and equipment, the court will hold a full quantum trial and decide each head of loss. This judgment is a rare published breakdown of a complete cerebral palsy award.

£2,000,001-£4,249,999

Settlement approved£3.85M

ERE v East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust

[2024] EWHC 2569 (KB)·2024·Settlement approved by the court

A 23-year-old mother was discharged after giving birth in July 2015, developed breathlessness and palpitations, and suffered a cardiac arrest after being readmitted, leaving her with severe hypoxic brain damage. The claim settled on the day the quantum trial was due to start and the court approved the package for her as a protected party.

Maternal claims are not limited to injuries during labour itself; a failure in care in the weeks after birth that causes brain injury can lead to a multi-million-pound settlement. Where the injured person lacks capacity, a judge must approve any settlement.

Settlement approved£2.5M

CTQ v King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

[2023] EWHC 2975 (KB)·2023·Settlement approved by the court

A 37-year-old mother suffered a cardiac arrest because intravenous fluids were not given during spinal anaesthesia just after her daughter's birth, leaving her with a brain injury; the hospital admitted liability. The court used its inherent jurisdiction to approve a settlement worth roughly £5.56m including periodical payments.

Anaesthetic errors around delivery can found a maternal negligence claim even when the baby is unharmed. Courts can approve settlements for adults with cognitive impairment even where they have not formally been found to lack capacity.

Claimant succeeded£2.85M

Chocken v Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

[2020] EWHC 3269 (QB)·2020·Appeal decision

After a 10-hour facial reconstruction the claimant developed compartment syndrome in both legs in intensive care and was left with permanent damage; the trust settled 70 days before trial for a £2.85 million lump sum plus annual payments of £48,000 rising to £85,000. This later judgment dealt only with the lawyers' success fee and dismissed the claimant's appeal on that point.

Compartment syndrome arising from post-operative monitoring failures can attract multi-million-pound settlements with periodical payments for lifelong care, although this figure comes from a costs judgment rather than a damages judgment.

£1,000,001-£2,000,000

Claimant succeeded£1.2M

Healey v McGrath & Anor

[2024] EWHC 1360 (KB)·2024·Liability decided at trial

Mr Healey died nine days after bowel cancer surgery at a private hospital when a leak at the surgical join was not recognised in time. The hospital settled the widow's claim for £1.2 million and the court ordered the surgeon to bear 75% of it, finding his failure to diagnose the leak the principal cause of death.

Post-operative deterioration after bowel surgery must prompt urgent consideration of a leak. Both the private hospital and the individual surgeon can be liable, with the court apportioning responsibility between them.

Claimant succeeded£1.3M

Parsons v Isle of Wight NHS Trust

[2023] EWHC 3115 (KB)·2023·Liability decided at trial

Before bowel cancer surgery, anaesthetists made three failed epidural attempts while the patient was awake and then seven more after putting her under anaesthetic, one of which pierced her spinal cord. Ritchie J held the anaesthetist should have obtained her informed consent before the unconscious attempts and offered alternatives, and that this failure caused the injury.

Consent is not a one-off: when a procedure changes course (here, moving to unconscious epidural attempts), the patient must be told of the options and risks again. The full agreed £1.3m followed from that single consent failure.

Claim failed£1.4M

Khan v Meadows

[2021] UKSC 21·2021·Appeal decision

A GP negligently failed to arrange proper testing, so a woman wrongly believed she did not carry the haemophilia gene and went on to have a son with haemophilia who also had autism. The Supreme Court held the GP was liable only for the haemophilia-related costs, because the purpose of the advice was to guard against that risk, not the unrelated risk of autism.

Damages are limited to losses falling within the scope of the duty the doctor undertook. Even where negligence clearly led to a child's birth, unrelated conditions that the advice was never meant to address are not recoverable.

£500,001-£1,000,000

Claimant succeeded£550,000

Alexander v HCA International Limited & Anor

[2026] EWHC 1284 (KB)·2026·Liability decided at trial

A patient developed life-threatening pancreatitis after a gallstone-removal ERCP. The judge found the consultant never prescribed or instructed the standard preventive diclofenac suppository, so it was not given, and entered judgment for £550,000 against him.

Failing to give a recognised prophylactic drug before a procedure can be negligent even in private care. The prescribing doctor, not the hospital, carried the liability here.

Claimant succeeded£811,247

Daisy Lynch v The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust

[2026] EWHC 657 (KB)·2026·Damages assessed at trial

The trust admitted it negligently failed to diagnose Daisy Lynch's developmental hip dysplasia at birth, so it was not picked up until she was three, by which time simple non-surgical treatment was no longer possible. She went through repeated hip operations and a total hip replacement at 22, and the court assessed her damages after an eight-day trial.

Even where liability is admitted, damages can be heavily contested, and the court can add a provisional damages order letting the claimant return for more if a specified complication later occurs. The award covered pain and suffering, lost earnings, future care and future surgery.

Claimant succeeded£522,379

Leigh v London Ambulance Service NHS Trust

[2014] EWHC 286 (QB)·2014·Liability and damages decided at trial

Ms Leigh dislocated her kneecap boarding a bus and was trapped in severe pain for about 50 minutes before an ambulance arrived; the trust admitted 17 minutes of that delay was negligent. The judge found the negligent delay made a material contribution to her PTSD, that her dissociative seizures were part of the PTSD, and assessed damages at £522,379 plus interest.

Even a short negligent ambulance delay can found a substantial claim where it materially contributes to a serious psychiatric injury. Damages can include lost earnings and pension where the injury ends the claimant's career.

£250,001-£500,000

Claimant succeeded£340,000

Bayless & Ors v Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

[2023] EWHC 2986 (KB)·2023·Liability decided at trial

The Trust admitted it missed an aortic dissection that emergency surgery would probably have cured, and settled the fatal claim for £340,000. When the widow and children later sued for psychiatric injury from witnessing the death, the Trust tried to strike that out but withdrew after discovering the earlier settlement had never been court-approved.

Fatal claims involving children need court approval of any settlement or it may not bind them. A missed aortic dissection in a chest-pain patient was accepted as negligent and fatal.

Claimant succeeded£298,617

Snow v Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust

[2023] EWHC 42 (KB)·2023·Liability and damages decided at trial

An engineer had a then-novel transanal rectal cancer operation without being told of the risks to sexual, urinary and bowel function, and was consented on the day of surgery. The judge found the trust failed to follow NICE guidance, accepted he would have chosen a conventional laparoscopic operation, and awarded £298,616.73.

Consent taken on the day of surgery without explaining material risks or alternatives can found a claim even if the surgery itself was competently done. New or learning-curve procedures need particularly careful counselling.

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.

Every judgment with the sum stated →

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.

§ WHAT DECIDES THE FIGURE

It is the outcome that sets the number, not how bad the mistake was.

People assume a worse error means more money. It does not. Compensation replaces what the injury took away, so a momentary lapse causing lifelong disability is worth far more than a serious blunder someone recovered from.

The injury itself

General damages for pain, suffering and the things you can no longer do, valued using the Judicial College Guidelines and comparable cases. Even in the largest awards this is a small share of the total.

What it costs you

Care, treatment, equipment, adapted housing, travel and lost earnings, past and future. This is what turns a serious injury into a seven-figure award, and why lifelong care needs dominate the top band.

Headline figures also understate the biggest settlements. In the most serious cases part of the award is paid as index-linked periodical payments for life: one published settlement of a £6.5M lump sum had a capitalised value of about £17.2M once those yearly payments were counted.

How a multi-million award is built, head by head →·Periodical payments explained →

§ BY AREA OF MEDICINE

Where your claim arose matters more than anything else.

Obstetrics CP/BD averages £4.7M per settled claim. Emergency Medicine, the busiest area with 1,327 settled claims, averages £188K. That gap is the whole shape of the data: birth injuries are rare and enormously expensive, because they need a lifetime of care.

SpecialtyClaims settledAverage per claim
Obstetrics CP/BD237£4.7M
Paediatrics229£921K
Neurosurgery157£491K
Neurology127£291K
Emergency Medicine1,327£188K
Obstetrics Non CP/BD1,016£173K
Orthopaedic Surgery1,101£162K
Ambulance170£160K
Radiology460£156K
Cardiology200£155K

Specialties with at least 50 settled claims in 2024/25. Averages include the very largest cases, so they sit well above what a typical claim in that area is worth.

The average claim keeps getting more expensive

The average payment per settled claim has risen from £103K in 2006/07 to £231K in 2024/25, a 2.2x increase. That reflects the rising cost of care, longer life expectancy for the most seriously injured, and more complex claims.

£103K
£110K
£138K
£120K
£118K
£163K
£152K
£126K
£121K
£146K
£150K
£203K
£224K
£212K
£192K
£198K
£209K
£223K
£231K
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024

Average in 2006/07

£103K

Average in 2024/25

£231K

Increase

2.2x

Over the full period

§ QUESTIONS

Questions people ask about payouts

What is the average payout for medical negligence in the UK?

There is no average worth quoting. Of the 13,329 NHS clinical negligence claims settled in 2024/25, 48% closed with no damages at all. Of those that did pay, the median was around £25,001-£50,000 while the mean was about £446K, because a small number of catastrophic cases pull the average far above the typical claim.

Do all medical negligence claims result in compensation?

No. Of the 13,329 claims settled in 2024/25, 6,441 closed without a payment. A poor outcome is not the same as negligence: the care has to have fallen below a reasonable standard, and that failure has to have caused harm you would otherwise have avoided. The figures on this page describe the claims that did succeed.

What is the highest medical negligence payout?

The largest band, £4.3M and above, accounted for 1.2% of claims but 51% of all the money paid out. Published judgments in that range include a £9.3M settlement for a newborn brain injury and a £6.87M award for cerebral palsy, both linked below.

How much does the NHS pay out in negligence claims?

NHS Resolution settled 13,329 clinical negligence claims in 2024/25 and paid £3.1B. The average per settled claim has risen from £103K in 2006/07 to £231K in 2024/25.

What decides how much a claim is worth?

Two things: the injury itself, valued using published guidelines and comparable cases, and the financial consequences, which means care, treatment, equipment, adapted housing and lost earnings, past and future. It is the severity of the outcome and its lifetime cost that drives the figure, not how serious the mistake looks.

Is a headline settlement figure the whole award?

Often not. In the most serious cases part of the award is paid as index-linked periodical payments for life. One published settlement of a £6.5M lump sum had a capitalised value of about £17.2M once those yearly payments were counted.

How long do I have to claim?

Usually three years from the treatment or from when you first knew something had gone wrong. Children have until their 21st birthday and no time limit runs while a person lacks the capacity to manage their own affairs.

Figures are for claims settled in 2024/25 and describe what the NHS paid, not what any individual claim is worth. Nothing here is legal advice. ClaimGavel is run by Costart Projects Ltd on behalf of Tomlin & Partners, a specialist medical negligence firm regulated by the SRA.

Source: NHS Resolution Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25. Data covers the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST), Existing Liabilities Scheme (ELS), and Risk Pooling Scheme for Trusts (RPST). This information is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.