Holiday Sickness Claims – Compensation For Food Poisoning & Illnesses

Holiday providers, restaurants, and hotels owe you a duty of care to your health and safety. That means if you become sick on holiday from the norovirus bug, food poisoning, or Legionnaires’ disease, as a result of negligence, you could make a holiday sickness claim and sue for compensation.

If you want to start a claim for an illness suffered on holiday, we are ready to help. To start the claims process, your case will be reviewed for free on a no-obligation basis where you’ll receive free advice on your options. Where our claims advisors think there is a case to be answered, they could pass the details on to one of our No Win No Fee personal injury solicitors to get the ball rolling.

If you’re ready to begin a holiday sickness claim right now, you can call us on 0800 6524 881. If you’d like to find out more about the holiday sickness claims process before getting in touch, please continue reading.

Am I Eligible To Make A Holiday Sickness Claim?

If you’d like one of our personal injury solicitors to make a holiday sickness claim for you, they’ll need to check a few criteria before agreeing to represent you. Amongst other things, they’ll check whether:

• You were owed a duty of care by the defendant; and
• They breached their duty because they were negligent in some way; and
• You suffered a holiday illness (or were injured on holiday) as a direct result of the negligence.

Importantly, holiday sickness claims won’t necessarily be made against the business that caused you to become ill if you’ve booked a package holiday. That’s because your tour operator will owe you a duty of care and be responsible for the services they sell you. Therefore, if you suffer food poisoning in a hotel on holiday abroad, the claim might be made against your package holiday provider rather than the hotel.

Claiming Compensation For Illness On A Package Holiday

How do you know if you’ve purchased a package holiday or not? Well, they’re not always labelled as such so it’s important to look at the relevant legislation. According to the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements 2018, you will have purchased a package holiday if you have purchased at least two main parts of your holiday from the same company. They do not need to have been purchased at the same time. The services this covers include:

• Accommodation (villas, hotels, apartments etc).
• Transport (flights, train journeys or coach trips – but not airport transfers).
• Hire cars.
• Excursion or similar tourist services if they are a significant part of your trip.

If you have purchased any two of these services together and are made ill whilst on holiday, you could claim holiday illness compensation against your holiday provider directly.

Common Causes Of Holiday Sickness Claims

Here are some common causes of holiday sickness claims for compensation:

• Poor food preparation. If your food is stored, prepared, or cooked incorrectly, you could be at risk of food poisoning on holiday. This includes improper refrigeration, undercooked meats, or cross-contamination between raw and cooked foods.
• Inadequate cleaning procedures. Where a restaurant, café, hotel, bar, or pub doesn’t clean its premises properly, there can be an increased risk of infections spreading. This includes unsanitary kitchens, unclean bathroom facilities, or poor hygiene standards in communal areas.
• Lack of controls at buffets. If food poisoning on holiday has broken out at a venue, food at buffets may need to be handed out by staff to reduce the potential for bugs to be spread. Leaving food at room temperature for extended periods or mishandling by other guests can also be a significant risk.
• Contaminated water supplies. Illnesses can result from poorly maintained water supplies at hotels or resorts. Contaminated water used for drinking, cooking, or even brushing teeth can cause stomach infections or more severe illnesses.
• Swimming pool hygiene. Hotels and resorts must properly maintain pools by keeping the chlorine levels appropriate to prevent bacterial growth. Poor maintenance can lead to infections such as cryptosporidiosis, which spreads in contaminated pool water.
• Personal hygiene of staff. Poor personal hygiene by staff members, such as not washing hands after using the toilet or handling raw food, can spread infections to guests.

Please contact our solicitors for free legal advice if you believe any of the above issues caused your illness during your holiday.

Common Types Of Holiday Illnesses

We have listed a few of the more common illnesses that could lead to a holiday sickness claim below:

• Sickness bugs like norovirus.
• Bacterial infections.
• Legionnaires’ disease.
• Food poisoning including e-coli, salmonella, and gastroenteritis.

If you would like free legal advice on holiday sickness claims, please call today and discuss your case with a specialist.

How Much Compensation Will I Get For Being Made Ill On Holiday?

Generally, if you make a holiday sickness claim the compensation you receive won’t be a pre-determined amount. Instead, the amount of compensation for holiday illness you could claim will be based upon these two damages:

• General damages. This element of the claim looks at the pain, suffering and loss of amenity. It could include loss of enjoyment of your holiday.
• Special damages. In this part of your claim, you could look to recover losses such as the cost of rearranging your flights home because of your illness. You could also claim for loss of earnings, care costs and medical expenses too.

You will need to prove the extent of your suffering. Therefore, your solicitor may need to book a medical assessment (usually locally) so that an independent medical specialist can discuss how you have suffered.

Holiday Illness Compensation Amounts

We have provided some compensation amounts for holiday illness in this section to show what you might be awarded for your suffering.

• Holiday illness from food poisoning with some disabling pain, £1,110 to £4,820 compensation.
• As above but with significant discomfort, £4,820 to £11,640 compensation.
• Short-lived illness from food poisoning, £11,640 to £23,430 compensation.
• As above but severe illness, £46,900 to £64,070 compensation.

Importantly, each holiday sickness claim is unique. Therefore, these figures should be used simply as guidance amounts at this stage. If your claim is successful, your compensation could be higher or lower than the figures listed. Your solicitor will give you a more detailed breakdown of the potential value of your holiday sickness claim once it has been fully assessed.

Evidence To Support A Holiday Sickness Claim

If you have been made ill on holiday due to somebody else’s negligence, there are several things you could do that could be used as evidence to make any subsequent holiday sickness claim easier. They include:

• Report the problem. It’s important to contact your holiday rep or support team to let them know that you’ve been made ill. You are entitled to a copy of the report form which could be used as evidence if you do proceed with a holiday illness claim.
• Seek medical treatment. Any illness on holiday should be treated by a medical professional as soon as possible to help you get better swiftly. Medical records could then be used as evidence to prove the extent of your injuries.
• Photographs and videos. If it is clear that hygiene standards are not good enough, capture footage on your mobile phone or camera.

The next step in the holiday sickness claims process might be to contact our holiday claims advisors so that your case can be reviewed for free.

Time Limits For Claiming Holiday Sickness Compensation

In any type of holiday accident claim, there will usually be a limitation period. For package holiday claims, this is a 3-year period from the date you were made ill on holiday. If you make a claim directly against a hotel or restaurant abroad (instead of your package holiday provider), the time limit will be based on local legislation.

Our recommendation is that it’s best to begin your holiday sickness claim at your earliest convenience. That’s because your solicitor will have several tasks to fulfil before they file the claim. These tasks can take some time so the sooner you begin, the better.

Where your child has been sick on holiday, you could become a litigation friend and make a claim on their behalf. That is something we can help with so long as you claim before their 18^th birthday (the 3-year limit does not apply). If you don’t, a claim is still possible but they will need to deal with it themselves before their 21^st birthday.

Please call our holiday claims advisors if you’re unsure how long you have to make a claim.

Do I Need A Solicitor To File A Holiday Sickness Claim?

If you decide to claim holiday sickness compensation against your holiday provider, they (or their insurers) are not going to pay compensation unless you can prove to them that their negligence caused you to be made ill.

We believe you are more likely to win your claim and be compensated fairly if you use a personal injury solicitor. If you work with us, we could appoint a No Win No Fee solicitor who will:

• Gather the evidence required to try and prove what happened.
• Arrange for you to have a local medical assessment.
• File the claim with your holiday provider.
• Handle all objections and queries on your behalf.
• Provide you with regular updates.
• Try to ensure you are compensated fully.

Where possible, your solicitor will try to achieve an amicable settlement with your holiday provider. In our experience, a very low percentage requires the intervention of a court.

Starting The Holiday Sickness Claims Process

If you believe any of the issues mentioned above caused your illness on holiday, our solicitors are here to help. You can contact us for free legal advice on 0800 6524 881  to discuss your options.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer to arrange a callback at a time that suits you better, simply fill in a callback form at the top of the page. Our team is also available via live chat 24/7 to provide the support you need.

If a compensation claim is viable, one of our solicitors could start the holiday sickness claims process straight away.