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Getting Medical Help after an Accident
If you have had an accident through no fault of your own, you should look at putting in a claim for compensation for the pain, suffering, and any financial losses caused as a result. But another massively important thing that is often missed by lawyers is the need for you, the injured victim, to have the best possible medical care straightaway.
Under the rules that govern making a claim, the other side have a duty to help you out in any way they can to help you get better as quickly as possible. So if you need medical treatment, like physiotherapy or chiropractic assistance for example, you need it right away when you are suffering the most from your injuries. But, whilst the NHS can be fantastic with their rehabilitation services, there can be long waiting lists that can run in to months.
Problem solved if you make a claim with The Injury Lawyers – we can look to arrange for the funding of private medical care for the case. We can usually sort out the funding for it so you get access to the best and quickest treatment right away, and you don’t have to pay any upfront fees for it! If the claim wins we will add the fees to the compensation settlement figure for the other side to pay. If it doesn’t win, it is covered by a policy of insurance our medical partners have. It’s kind of like No Win, No Fee treatment!
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If you are lifting heavy objects at work then there is an obvious risk that you could sustain injury, especially if you have not received training or advice in respect of lifting heavy objects. An employer should provide you with training to enable you to do your job properly, without sustaining injury.
In terms of lifting heavy objects, there should be procedures in place to ensure that injuries are avoided all together or reduced as much as possible. In some jobs lifting and carrying heavy objects is simply part of the job. However workers should not be expected to do this blindly, they should receive training on lifting and carrying techniques.
An employer who does not provide adequate training is leaving itself open to negligence claims when employees become injured. Typical injuries could include back and or neck strain, shoulder strain etc. For objects that are particular heavy employers should consider other ways of moving the objects, perhaps by avoiding manual handling all together. You can of course move objects using equipment such as fork lift trucks.
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Holes in the Ground Manhole Cover Claims
The whole purpose of manhole covers is to allow access to something below the ground but also to keep the area safe when access is not required. Basically, it stops there being a big hole in the middle of the street, which of course is not going to end well if you walk in to it!
However, some manhole covers can be extremely old and as many are made from metal, over the years, they have rusted and become unstable and consequently lead to serious injuries.
There are three main types of accidents that are caused by manhole covers:
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Scams involving claims for personal injury
Ever seen the film the Invention of Lying, starring Ricky Gervais? It’s a great film; and I think it would be amazing if the concept could actually be true. Imagine a world where no-one can lie? It would be far better and fairer for those of us who live an honest life if all the cheaters and the scammers were unable to do what they do.
But how does this all tie in with a personal injury post?
Personal injury often gets a bad reputation. But to be honest, unless you’ve actually been in an accident and been injured, you probably just think it’s a “joke”.
People getting money for free! For nothing!
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If I Make A Personal Injury Claim Will I Go To Court?
This is something that always seems to worry people when they are considering making a claim – as understandably many people do not like the thought of being put in front of a judge with someone firing questions at them (like you see on the many court dramas on T.V). However, in the majority of civil claims they never get as far as going to court, so there really is no reason that this should deter you from pursuing a claim.
The civil procedure rules – the rules that govern personal injury claims – are specifically designed to stop the need to go to court. They do this through a number of ways with the main one being what is called a Part 36 offer. I will not go into much detail here about these, but they are a good example to show how the rules are designed to deter people from going to court.
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Legal Expenses Insurance NO NO NO!
Legal expenses insurance is undoubtedly the biggest scam in the personal injury claims arena!. It involves your insurance company SELLING your details across to a solicitor – and this solicitor will then contact you and run your case (if you confirm with them of course). Many would think that, this has nothing to do with them – so what if they have bought my details – why does that matter to me?
I assure you IT DOES! Nothing causes more frustration here in the office, than when insurance companies and the solicitors involved in this system catch people in their trap.
Under the road traffic accident protocol, solicitors are only able to recover fixed fees. This is relevant because, if your solicitor has already paid a chunk of money to the insurance company for your details (shall we say £1,000 – which is not an uncommon amount), this takes away from the amount of money they have available to them to run your case.
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Understanding Why Mitigating Your Claim is a Good Thing
When you are suffering from an injury as a result of an accident, it is inevitable that you will incur some losses. This can include things such as loss of earnings, medical and treatment expenses but also any items that may have been damaged because of the accident. This last one some may think is only applicable to road traffic accidents as of course cars are inevitably damaged one way or another; but items such as clothing and jewellery are always vulnerable to damage.
However, understandably, there has to be something in place to ensure these losses are not exaggerated and stay in the realm of “reasonableness“. This word is used A LOT in relation to losses and is the main guiding principle when calculating losses. So always think to yourself “Is this reasonable?” when incurring any losses – hiring a supercar rather than the courtesy car offered to you is probably not mitigating your loss (unless your car you’re temporarily replacing happens to be a supercar, because an argument for having like-for-like may be accepted).
So what does “mitigating you losses” mean? Basically, that you must try and keep your losses to a reasonable minimum.
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Personal Injury Compensation Payout on a Knee Injury – National Average for Knee Injury Payouts
Injuring your knee is usually very painful. As an area of the body that’s prone to injury, you can get anything ranging from some straightforward muscular swelling like a pulled muscle or a stretched ligament to the agony of a torn or ruptured ligament leaving you unable to walk properly for a long time, and even needing surgery.
The problem is that it is too easy to twist your knee to such an extent where you end up rupturing ligaments and needing reconstructive surgery.
A torn ligament may not be so bad, and can be repaired surgically but may be prone to tearing again and will leave you in a lot of pain for some time – but if the whole ligament ruptures, you will likely need a hamstring or patella graft (or similar) where pieces of the hamstring or patellar tendon are taken and fitted in the place of the ruptured ligament (hence the term ‘reconstruction’)
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Proving Fault in Road Traffic Accidents
In order to recover damages in any personal injury claim, you must be able to prove that someone else was legally at fault for the accident.
Fault in this sense means that someone was careless, reckless or negligent as to cause an accident.
In personal injury claims, the person who is considered fault is referred to as the Defendant.
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Medical Negligence Claims Solicitors
A recent report showed that during 2011, the General Medical Council (GMC) the organisation that manage, register, and licenses doctors practicing medicine in the UK, received a total of 8,781 complaints from patients
The three most commonly reported types of complaint were related to:
- concerns with investigations and treatment, such as failure to diagnose or prescribing inappropriate medications
- problems with communication – such as not providing appropriate information or not responding to people’s concerns
- perceived lack of respect for the patient – such as being rude or dishonest