Compensation claims on the increase

According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), whiplash claims have rocketed by 25 per cent within the past five years with 1,200 people filing a compensation claim for whiplash injury a day.

Furthermore, worrying figures released by the government this month has revealed that the number of deaths due to medical negligence has increased by 60 per cent within the past two years. As a result, medical negligence claims had risen by 18 per cent last year.

The growing number of people injured or killed due to accidents in the workplace has also led to a number of safety messages being spread across Lancashire.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had issued the safety messages after figures found that a total of 4,140 people were killed or seriously injured in work-related accidents in Lancashire last year.

The messages were set as a reminder for employers and staff of Lancashire to ensure their workplaces are safer in 2009.

North West Regional Operations Manager, David Sowerby of the HSE said: "Behind these statistics are cases of real suffering and, for some, hardship through loss of income. We are asking that businesses take practical action to manage the risks people face in their day-to-day work.

Each year at this time HSE reflects on the number of incidents in the preceding 12 months, and each year the same patterns are repeated. Again, our inspectors have found that falling from height and being hit by falling or moving objects were among the chief causes of death and injury. If workplaces could eliminate these factors, both of them avoidable, these startling figures would be hugely reduced."

Meanwhile, after government figures revealed that the number of those who died as a result of medical negligence had increased by 1,370 in the two years of April 2007 and March 2008, talks that the NHS standards need to be improved have been stressed.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat said: “These statistics are stark and the trend is shocking. There needs to be a change of culture at the heart of the NHS. We have got far too many targets and there is a real risk that, although they are very effective at addressing a specific issue, they mean trusts do not see safety as a priority.”

Peter Walsh of pressure group Action Against Medical Accidents, said: “We need to make patient safety a much higher priority. Staff need training and there needs to be an overhaul of surgical practice, where many avoidable errors happen."

Bookmark with:

Print Preview

E-mail to a friend