Spleen Injury Compensation Claims
Ruptured spleen, splenectomy and missed diagnosis
A spleen injury is treated as an emergency and then, very often, treated as over. It usually is not. If the spleen was removed, there are things you will be doing for the rest of your life because of it, and those are part of the claim. We handle spleen injury claims on a No Win No Fee basis.
Regulated solicitors
Years' experience
No Win No Fee
If your spleen was removed, that is a lifelong thing
Why that matters to a claim
The NHS is clear that the risk of a serious infection is small. It is equally clear that the risk “will be present for the rest of your life”. That combination is what a claim has to capture: not a catastrophe, but a permanent piece of management that did not exist before the accident.
In practical terms that can mean decades of prescription costs, a vaccination schedule to keep up with, and a real constraint on where you can reasonably travel. The travel point is often the one people feel most, and it is a genuine loss of amenity rather than only a financial one.
None of this appears on its own. Somebody has to identify it, evidence it and claim it.
The distinction that matters legally. Where a spleen is removed and the person is left with a continuing vulnerability to infection, that is treated differently from a case where the spleen is lost but the immune risk is not significant. Which side of that line you fall on is a medical question answered by the expert evidence, and it makes a substantial difference. It is also a question that never gets asked if nobody raises it.
Can you make a spleen injury claim?
The test is the same as for any injury claim. Somebody owed you a duty of care, they fell short of it, and that is what caused the damage to your spleen. What changes is who that somebody is.
Route one: the spleen was injured in an accident
The spleen sits under the ribs on the left side, so it is vulnerable to blunt force to that part of the body. Road collisions are the most common cause, followed by falls, being struck at work, and contact sport. Where the injury came from an assault, there is a separate route through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority even if nobody has been convicted.
Route two: the injury was missed, or caused during treatment
A splenic injury is not always obvious straight away, and one that is not picked up can deteriorate. Claims also arise where a spleen was damaged during other abdominal surgery, or removed when it need not have been. That is a clinical negligence claim rather than an accident claim, and it runs against the hospital trust rather than an insurer.
These claims ask a harder question: whether the care fell below a reasonable standard, and whether better care would probably have saved the spleen. Not every bad outcome is negligence.
A note on time limits, because the guidance on this is often wrong
The usual limit is three years from the injury, or from when you first knew it was connected to someone else’s failure. For a child, the three years does not start until their eighteenth birthday, which means they have until they are twenty-one. If you have read anywhere that a claim for a child must be brought before they turn eighteen, that is not right. Where an injured person lacks the mental capacity to conduct a claim, the period does not run while that remains the case. An application to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has its own shorter deadline, normally two years.
Common causes of spleen injuries
Almost all of them involve force to the left side of the abdomen or the lower ribs.
Seat belt loading, steering wheel impact, and being struck as a pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist. Collisions involving larger vehicles are a common source, and those claims run through the road traffic accident route.
From height at work, or onto a hard edge, where the ribs take the impact. A splenic laceration from a fall is common enough that it should be looked for rather than waited for.
Moving vehicles, falling loads and machinery. These claims run through the accident at work route against the employer’s insurer.
Rugby, football and martial arts, where the question is usually whether the rules, the supervision or the equipment fell short of what was reasonable rather than whether contact happened.
A blow or kick to the abdomen. This route runs through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority where there is nobody to sue, and it has its own two year deadline.
Spleen damage caused during other abdominal surgery, or a spleen removal that need not have happened. Covered under route two above.
The words on your discharge letter. You may see a lacerated spleen, a splenic laceration, a spleen contusion, a ruptured spleen or a splenectomy. They describe how bad the damage was and what was done about it, and the grade recorded in the notes is one of the things a claim is built on. Bring the letter, whichever of those words it uses.
What if you were partly to blame
This comes up more on spleen injuries than on most, because the commonest cause is a road collision and the commonest argument insurers run is about a seat belt. It is worth knowing what that argument can and cannot do.
Under section 1(1) of the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945, a claim is not defeated by the fault of the person who suffered the damage. The damages are reduced instead, to the extent the court thinks just and equitable. A finding that you were 25 per cent responsible pays 75 per cent of the claim, not nothing.
Insurers sometimes put your share higher than the evidence supports, because a percentage argued at the outset and never tested is a discount they keep. That is the part worth pushing back on, and it is a separate question from whether you have a claim at all.
What a spleen injury claim can cover
A claim has two halves. What the injury has done to you, and what it has cost you. On lorry collisions the second half is frequently the larger of the two.
The injury itself
Assessed against published brackets once an independent medical expert has reported. The key question is whether the organ was saved or lost, and if lost, whether you have been left permanently more prone to infection. Those are treated as different injuries, not as degrees of the same one.
Surgery, scarring and any psychological effect of what was often a frightening emergency are assessed alongside it. Where the emergency left a diagnosed psychological injury rather than an understandable fright, that is valued separately on its own evidence.
What it has cost, and will cost
What the guidelines say a spleen is worth
Courts value the injury itself against the Judicial College Guidelines. These are the spleen figures from the 18th edition, published on 9 April 2026, which raised the 17th edition by 8.26 per cent using the Retail Prices Index to August 2025.
Those brackets price the pain. They do not price what the pain has cost you, and that half is added on top in full. It is also why chronic pain awards turn so heavily on prognosis, and why we will not put a figure on yours until independent specialists have reported on how your condition is likely to develop.
Look at the gap between those two rows. It is roughly £23,000, and the only thing that moves a claim from the first to the second is an expert answering one question about your immune position. That is why the question matters more than anything else on this page.
Why the number is not the answer
Any figure quoted before a medical expert has said whether you have a lasting immune vulnerability is describing somebody else’s case, because that single question moves the assessment more than anything else. The brackets above price the injury; they do not price the decades of management that follow it, and that half is added on top in full.
What is worth asking a solicitor at the outset is not what your claim is worth, but whether they intend to claim the lifelong costs at all. A surprising number of these claims are settled without them.
Evidence that supports a spleen injury claim
Two things have to be established: that somebody was responsible, and what you have been left with. On a spleen claim the second half is the one people under-evidence, because much of it has not happened yet.
Already settled, or been offered something? If a spleen was removed and the offer was made without any expert view on your immune position, it is worth taking advice before accepting. Once a claim is settled it is settled, and the lifelong costs do not come back for a second look.
No Win No Fee spleen injury claims
A No Win No Fee agreement, properly called a Conditional Fee Agreement, means there is nothing to pay upfront. If the claim does not succeed, you do not pay us for our work, subject to the terms of your agreement.
If it succeeds, a success fee agreed with you in advance comes out of your compensation. There is a legal cap on that fee in personal injury claims, and it is worth understanding properly: the cap is calculated on your damages for the injury itself and your past financial losses, not on the whole settlement, because future losses are left out of the calculation.
On a claim with substantial lifelong costs that distinction is worth real money to you.
Ask us to walk you through the figures, including what happens to disbursements and whether any insurance is taken out on your behalf, rather than taking a headline percentage on trust. That applies to any firm you speak to.
Spleen injury claims
your questions answered
The questions we are asked most, answered plainly.
Can I claim if my spleen had to be removed?
Yes, and a splenectomy is generally treated as a more serious injury than a spleen that was repaired. What decides the value is the immune question set out above: an expert has to say whether losing it left you permanently more prone to infection. Make sure somebody actually asks, because nothing else moves the figure as much.
Does losing a spleen affect you for life?
Yes, in a manageable rather than a dramatic way. The NHS says most people live normally afterwards because other organs take on much of the work, and that a small risk of serious infection stays with you permanently. The schedule near the top of this page is what that means week to week, and it is the part a claim has to pay for.
Can I claim if my spleen injury was missed by a hospital?
Possibly. The test is different from an accident claim: whether the care fell below a standard supported by a responsible body of medical opinion, and separately whether better care would probably have changed the outcome. Not every bad result is negligence, and an honest firm will tell you which yours looks like.
What if the accident was partly my fault?
You can usually still claim, because a share of the blame reduces the damages rather than ending the claim. On this injury the argument is nearly always a seat belt one, and it is worth testing rather than accepting, because a percentage nobody challenges is a discount the insurer simply keeps.
How long do I have to make a spleen injury claim?
Three years in most cases, with two exceptions worth knowing. A child’s three years does not start until they turn eighteen, so they have until twenty-one. And a Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority application has a shorter deadline, normally two. Anyone who tells you a child’s claim must be brought before eighteen has it wrong.
Can I claim if my spleen was injured in an assault?
Yes, and there is a route even where the attacker was never identified or convicted. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority pays awards to blameless victims of violent crime against a published tariff, and eligibility does not depend on the offender having money. It does require the incident to have been reported to the police as soon as reasonably practicable, and for you to cooperate with the investigation.
What if my claim has already been settled?
Then it is generally closed, which is why the point is worth raising here rather than afterwards. Where the immune question was never put to an expert, the lifelong costs will not have been in the figure and they cannot be revisited. If an offer is on the table now and nobody has asked it, take advice first.
Find out where you stand
Tell us what happened, roughly when, and whether the spleen was repaired or removed. That last detail matters more than anything else you can tell us. We will give you an honest view of whether there is a claim worth bringing, and of what it would need to establish.
- Free, confidential and without obligation
- No Win No Fee available
- SRA-regulated solicitors
Check if you can make a claim
Takes less than 60 seconds
Other claims we handle
Find out whether you have a claim
Most people who ring about a spleen injury were discharged some time ago and were left with the impression that the matter was closed. If the spleen was removed, it is not closed, and the part that continues is the part most claims never account for. Ten minutes on the phone will tell you whether that applies to you. The conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
Related Blogs
