• The term given to the payment, fixed by law, for the grief and trauma suffered when a loved one dies due to the negligent actions of someone else. Not everyone is entitled to bereavement damages, it is usually restricted to the husband, wife or civil partner of the deceased.

Other circumstances in which it may be possible to claim include:

• Unmarried, cohabiting couples who have been in a relationship for more than two years may be able to claim under the Human Rights Act.
• If the person who dies was under the age of 18 and is unmarried, a parent may be able to claim.

This is the pain and suffering experienced by the deceased before they passed away.

It may be possible to include the cost of the funeral and certain associated expenses as part of any claim.

 This can include losses that occurred prior to the death, associated to the negligence and any applicable future loss of earnings. If the deceased was the main breadwinner in the household and there are a number of dependents that relied on their salary, the consequences can be severe. Consequently if you have had to give up work to look after dependents following the death of a spouse, your loss of income could also be taken into consideration.

This may include pension contributions lost out on as a result of the death.

If the loss of a loved one has meant that you now have to pay for additional childcare, this could also be factored into the final compensation amount.

After the death of a loved one, especially in instances when the death was sudden, counselling can be extremely beneficial to family members to help them come to terms with the death and to get back to their normal way of life. Private counselling can however be expensive, and NHS waiting lists are often long.

When someone dies, and the cause of their death is unclear, an inquest will be held to confirm what factors led to the death. An inquest will be conducted by a coroner, who will undertake an investigation into the facts of the death to determine who has died, where they died, when they died and how they died. This will allow the coroner to reach a conclusion as to the cause of death.

Whilst a coroner will not be looking to establish blame, the investigation process will often highlight areas of substandard treatment that may constitute negligent treatment.