Personal Injury Compensation in the UK

After what is now 10 years of "No Win No Fee" in the UK, Channel 4 showed a documentary last night that was a fly on the wall of both sides of Personal Injury Compensation Claims Industry. It featured a well known personal injury solicitors firm in Liverpool. The programmes makers provocative titled the documentary Scams, Claims & Compensation Games.

For many years the media have sensationalised lots of stories and the world of personal injury has been no exception to this. The so called "Compensation Culture" is here they say.

The documentary shared both sides of the world of injury claim litigation and highlighted the just how many people are involved in the claims process, from solicitors, expert witnesses, product experts to specialist independent medics. The Liverpool firm that featured in the documentary advertises its services on the back of fracture clinic appointment cards, which is how one poor man who badly broke his arm after tripping on a defective raised slab went down the NO Win No Fee accident claim route.

The show featured other real life case of claims for sports injury, trips and slips, facial injuries sustained from a faulty razor, and also a lady who was injured in a park from a large branch falling off the tree. The fly on the wall documentary was quite entertaining to the viewer flaming the debate of is it right or wrong to make a personal injury claim? However overall, the programme seemed to focus too heavily on broken slab and road defects such as potholes or rocking slabs. Whilst these are a type of claim against local authorities are common there are many other frequent type of claims such as accident road injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents, accident work claims when someone is badly or severely injured as a result of negligence from the employer, industrial disease such as asbestos related illness or medical negligence claims against hospitals that have shown to be negligent in their duty of care, as was highlighted only this week when the investigation into the Min Staffordshire NHS Trust hospital revealed as it routinely neglected many patients between the years of 2005 & 2008.

As highlighted in the show, the trip and slip type claim can be notoriously difficult to challenge when involving local authorities as they often use the Section 58 of the Highways Act as a statutory defence which can render many claims for pavement trips difficult if not impossible to win as it relies on more witnesses that also saw the defect and further evidence. Whilst not impossible to win this type of claim, caution should be taken if you have just tripped on a broken slab because the defect needs to be dangerous by definition, a millimetre either way can mean the difference between £1000's of pounds of compensation and nothing. This was reflected in the documentary results of the plight of some of the real life cases that were shown. The razor man was awarded £6000 for his facial scarring, the schoolboy injured at school playing football £2250, the lady that the tree fell on was awarded a four figure sum but both the pavement trip and slip claims did not win any compensation.

For the many thousands of people genuinely injured or killed each year as the result of someone else's negligence, then financial compensation awarded for their injuries, pain and suffering is rightfully what they deserve. Whatever accident you may have suffered in the last three years that was not your then call an Accident Claim injury personal specialist that can help you with your claim.