The assessment of parental earnings in the calculation of damages for children under 18 years of age is unfair. It undermines the principle that damages should be calculated to meet a person’s needs and contradicts the principle of equality that sits at the heart of our health system. We recommend that the assessment of future earnings based on parental income should be scrapped for all NHS-related clinical negligence claims involving children under 18 years of age. We also recommend that such compensation is standardised against the national average wage to prevent unjust variability in compensation pay-outs.