Cancer survival rates in England are lower than they should be

England seems to be lacking something when it comes to cancer care.

Our survival rates are shocking as compared to other comparable countries. Why is that..?

Late diagnosis has been blamed but the truth is that as long as errors are made we will have the support of medical negligence lawyers who win much needed compensation for families affected by bad medical advice.

Do not put up with bad healthcare. Make sure your voice is always heard.

http://www.theclaimsconnection.co.uk/medical-negligence.html

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33772892

Slater & Gordons to buy Quindell..?

More news here on this unlikely marriage:

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/slater-and-gordon-no-offer-yet-put-to-quindell/5047002.article

Legal Advice Online - for FREE...? Really??

In an increasing trend law firms seem to be offering their services for virtually no cost in an attempt to engage with consumers and sell them something today tomorrow or sometime soon.

Maybe its an enticement to get people through the doors but you have to wonder how firms that do this actually make money.

I do like the wise old legal advice owl shown here though; www.online-legal-advice.co.uk - clever!!

Rob Terry steps down as chairman of Quindell

Following a flurry of media activity aimed at explaining why Rob Terry and others borrowed money to buy back shares in Quindell, the man himself has quit. This has left many questions unanswered but one question did pop up on an FT.com blog post today.

What would the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) do if a firm like Quindell ever went under..?

They own law firms that manage up to 100,000 claims between them. How would the SRA cope if this type of ABS entity went belly up..? I can only imagine and let us hope that it never comes to pass.

Quindell .. doubts emerge

Quindell have been busy snapping up law firms (Silverbeck Rymer, Pinto Potts) and claims management companies (Accident Advice Helpline) during the last 2 years.

Their relentless march continued this year with a rumours they were looking for a clinical negligence firm, they were also said to be building a claims "factory" in Leeds.

If you were connected with them in any way you could look forward to a solid high volume conveyor belt future. In the personal injury world that is an incredibly tantalizing prospect right now.

But then came the "share scare" last month.

Alleged shorting.

Some difficult questions raised - and answered in fairness. A very bullish reply to the brouhaha from Quindell.

I hope that what glitters is in fact gold. We need Quindell to bring stability to the industry and to give hope to those working in this wonderful sector. Its a big boys game nowadays and all we can hope is that the big boys deliver.

Sexual Abuse Legal Claims On the Increase

Sexual abuse claims soar following the Savile revelations 

Personal injury firms have seen one growth area during the turmoil of recent years. Claims for sexual abuse compensation are soaring after the recent publicity given to Jimmy Savile and other high profile individuals.

Lawyers are dealing with an increase in enquiries as victims are spurred on by the openness surrounding the subject. After years in the shadows people are starting to discover they are firstly not alone but secondly also have legal rights.  

Claims can be made against the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (or CICA sometimes confusingly referred to as the criminal injuries board)   

This can only be a good thing for the victims and with awards of up to £22000 possible for such claims, it is no wonder that lawyers are taking an interest when you consider the % contingency fee that can apply. Legal costs sadly are not recoverable from the CICA but be aware they very often can be if a case is made against an organisation, local authority or a business.

Walker Morris to close their PI department inside 12 months

Rather shocking news given the size of this firm and their history in the growth of the personal injury market. WM Solicitors are (it is reported) to shut their PI unit inside 12 months and will also be closing / selling their website Distinctly Legal to concentrate on "core services".

This will surprise many in the industry but when you consider the following:

-- Conveyor belt LEI work is being retained by the insurers utilising new ABS vehicles (didnt the SRA say that could never happen?)

-- Solicitors - even the biggest ones - cannot market PI independently on the same mass / volume level that they have enjoyed previously. Its just too expensive

Factor in the substantial cut in fees introduced by the recent reforms and for many firms you have a recipe for disaster.

We knew it was coming, well ..... its arrived.  

LASPO  - Six Months On

It’s exactly six months since the controversial reforms to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into effect on the 1^st of April. Now that the dust has settled, what do industry figures really think of the changes, and what does the future have in store for the personal injury sector?

Find out what prominent industry figures Tim Kevan (ex-barrister, creator of the Guardian’s Baby Barista blog and co-editor of the Personal Injury Brief Update Law Journal (PIBULJ)), barrister Aidan Ellis, and Alan Kennedy (the founder of National Accident Helpline, the UK’s biggest personal injury claims company), have to say.

LASPO and its impact on personal injury claims

The 2013 reforms aimed at eradicating the UK’s so-called ‘compensation culture’, have been criticised by many commentators, including Labour Peer and shadow spokesman on legal aid Lord Bach, for limiting access to justice and for hitting those who are worst off the hardest. 

Tim agrees, saying his main concern is the “detrimental effect [the changes] could have on those who have been injured and have a legitimate claim, both in terms of the amount of money they might ultimately receive, and worse still on the more fundamental issue of access to justice. Some claimants may slip through the net if their claims are not seen as viable due to the balance of recoverable costs and risk”.

LASPO abolishes the recoverability of success fees from defendants in most personal injury cases, and means that success fees will be often be deducted from the compensation awarded. Tim points out that the “general principle for most damages in this country is that they should be compensatory”, in other words, putting someone back in the position they would have been in if the accident had not happened. Tim believes that this principle is undermined when costs which have been legitimately incurred by the claimant then have to be paid from their compensation, rather than by the wrong-doer's insurer. He adds “I fear that this may not be adequately compensated through the 10% increase in general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity”.

Aidan adds that the introduction of Damages Based Agreements for no win no fee personal injury claims could on occasion “cause serious ethical dilemmas for lawyers”, such as when advising clients on whether or not to accept an offer, as in some circumstances the claimant’s decision will have a “direct effect on whether and how much the lawyer gets paid”.      

So what does all this mean for those who believe they’re entitled to compensation? Is it simply not worth making a claim anymore?

Alan Kennedy from National Accident Helpline stresses that those injured and in need of compensation should not be put off by the LASPO reforms, but says because it’s likely claimants will have to pay some of their costs out of their compensation, it’s “now more important than ever that people choose an honest firm” with which to make their claim. Some firms will place a cap on the amount they deduct from the claimant’s compensation, whereas others will be less clear about their charges in the event of a successful claim. Similarly some firms may leave consumers exposed to litigation risk and ask for a payment of upfront fees.  “It’s critical that claimants understand exactly where they stand when starting the claims process”.

The future of personal injury claims - what will change in the next five years?

As Aidan points out, “five years can be a short time in litigation”. Already figures released by the Claims Management Regulation Unit (CMRU), reveal that the number of claims management companies fell by nearly 30% recently, with many companies closing because of financial pressure resulting from the LASPO reforms.

Tim, Aidan and Alan all agree that this trend looks set to continue, and that smaller high street firms in particular may struggle to cope. They expect to see lots of mergers as small firms strive to achieve the economies of scale necessary.

While acknowledging that consolidation within the PI sector is inevitable, Alan believes that there is also an upside for claimants, as the remaining operators will “have to be very tuned into consumer needs, and will, like NAH, have to provide consumers with guarantees around charges and risk as well as consistently high levels of expertise and customer service.

In addition, Tim expects there to be an increasing shift towards firms using online marketing, and the provision of some services online, as “if law firms get it right, they have access to an enormous market far more easily than before”.

Watch this space…

LASPO is just one of a number of issues currently affecting the personal injury sector, and it may be more than five years before the full implications of the reforms are known.

As far as the claimant is concerned, LASPO does not mean the end to access to justice. The reforms bring both advantages and drawbacks, but it’s clear that it’s now more important than ever that the claimant chooses carefully when it comes to selecting a solicitor, firm, or claims management company to handle their claim.

Personal Injury Referral Fee Ban

From the 1st April 2013 it is now illegal for a law firm to buy or sell personal injury referrals / leads in order to generate profit.

The official word from the SRA is here for those who havent read the prohibitive instrument in all its glory:

The personal injury referral business is worth hundreds of millions of pounds - or rather it used to be.

The end of the personal injury world as we know it
....and I dont feel fine

For those old enough to recall that lyric you may well have enjoyed a halcyon period as a personal injury lawyer but it seems that our world is changing forever any time soon.

Not content with the big hit on reforming the fee structure and banning referrals, the government now seem intent on hitting the small claims court limit which has been stable at £1000 for 2 decades or more.

More on the story here 

If these changes go ahead then the PI industry we know and love will not exist below a £5000 damages threshold.

I will keep you posted on developments

Meanwhile my conveyancing friends tell me things are picking up in the housing market. Who would have thought it 6 years ago that a conveyancer had brighter prospects than a personal injury lawyer..!!!

From April 2013 the personal injury world as we know it - changes forever

After months of jousting and posturing, during which time LegalSpy has kept his counsel, the fat lady has finally sung on the subject of the personal injury reforms.

From April this year the following rules come in:

Claimants must pay for their own insurance to protect them in any legal proceedings. Previously the insurance was recovered as part of the claim.

Claimant lawyers to be paid less than 40% of what they would have achieved in the current regime

Insurers no longer have to pay the claimants success fee which the lawyer would charge to reflect the risk taken in pursuing a No win No fee case. Now the claimant has to pay this out of compensation and in personal injury terms this will equate to 25% of damages.

Claims arising from road accidents, accidents on the street, public place or those occurring at work under £25k in value all now fall to be dealt with via a computerised system known as the "portal". The intention is to dumb down the process and buy claims off as quickly as possible. 

These measures may not sound too extreme ... but they are.

The whole industry has been turned on its head and the people who will suffer the most will be the injured accident victims. Why...? Because at the lower end of the spectrum the legal process will be geared towards speed and efficiency not client care or service. 

Sad times and unfortunately ... this is just the start.

PPI Radio Ad Banned for Using Scare Tactics

Without fail, every time we switch the radio on, our ears will be filled with the words “PPI” and “claims”, and not without good reason – you should reclaim what’s rightfully yours, it’s your money.

But what about when companies take it too far to get your attention?

PPI specialists Payment Protection Partnership recently took it a little too far, warning listeners that their “time is running out” to claim. 

The ad went on to ask “£2,000? £4,000? Just how much are you costing yourself…You could be in line for thousands, but only if you claim in time.”

Of course, this may have been somewhat over amplifying and the advertising watchdog, ASA, has banned the campaign for using scare tactics by “overstating the urgency for referring a complaint through PPP”.

In truth, although the banks are now pushing the FSA to set a deadline, this is not likely affect claimants until next summer, at the earliest. 

There is currently no deadline for claiming for mis-sold PPI, as PPI Claimline will tell you. And, even if you don’t have your paperwork, any reputable claims company (such as the aforementioned) will find it all for you.

So, if you had the scarers put on you after hearing that ad, fear not. There is no urgency to reclaim…although those few thousands you’re entitled to would be nice! 

Cerebral palsy sufferer keeps NHS payout

A Leeds family are celebrating after winning an appeal court hearing brought by the NHS. The case in my view illustrates all that is wrong with the approach taken by the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) when defending claims against the medical profession.

Nathan Popple was awarded compensation of £5.5m by the High Court after he suffered devastating brain injuries during his birth. Now 14, Nathan developed cerebral palsy and severe disabilities. He cannot speak and must be fed through a tube as he is unable to swallow. However our friends at the NHSLA appealed the decision, telling the Court of Appeal that the brain damage occurred “some time remote from delivery” in the last three days of the labour. At the appeal court rejected this argument tank goodness.

Nathan now lives with his mother Beryl Sanderson and her partner in the Cookridge area of Leeds and they claimed to have spent most of the last decade, firstly trying to get the compensation they felt they were owed from Birmingham Women’s Hospital, and then fighting to keep it in the light of the case going to the Court of Appeal. 

For all the negative press that lawyers receive for pursuing such claims, it is entirely appropriate that the NHSLA are brought to account for adopting such an aggressive and in the end futile defence to an already complex injury claim.

Living and working as I do in Leeds, I am very pleased that justice prevailed for this local family.

HSE Statistics for 2011

New annual Heath and Safety Executive (HSE) statistics have been published in relation to workplace health and safety. 

On 31 October 2012 the figures were announced for the period April 2011 to March 2012. Numbers of fatal and serious injury incidents appear to be falling.

Some of the key findings are as follows:

173 workers were fatally injured. This is down from 175 in 2010/11. The average over the previous five years is 196 deaths a year.

22,433 major injuries were reported, in comparison to 24,944 in 2010/11. The previous five year average is 27,170.

88,731 other serious injuries, resulting in at least four days off work, were reported. This is down from 91,742 the previous year and the 103,627 previous five year average.

Around 1.1 million people said they were suffering from an illness caused or exacerbated by work in comparison to around 1.2 million in 2010/11. The average over the previous five years was around 1.25 million.

HSE prosecuted 551 cases in England and Wales, an increase of 6% from the previous year, and secured 506 convictions (92%). Local authorities prosecuted 95 cases in England and Wales, a fall of 23% from the previous year, and secured 92 convictions (97%)

The Procurator Fiscal heard 34 cases in Scotland, a drop of 11% on the previous year, and secured 32 convictions (94%).

27 million days were lost overall (17 days per case) with 22.7 million due to work-related ill health and 4.3 million due to workplace injury.

Construction, agriculture and waste and recycling remain amongst the higher risk sectors.

Big changes are coming to the medical negligence sector in England and Wales

Most people believe that legal aid is the last bastion of hope for people in the UK who need legal help and cannot afford it. That would indeed be a fair assumption to make because legal aid has long since provided an outlet to those on the breadline who deserve justice whether this be for a criminal or civil matter.

In recent years, legal aid has only been available within the personal injury field for claims involving clinical negligence. This takes in a considerable amount of claims involving children, pensioners and those on low incomes who need financial backing to pursue a case against a negligent doctor or healthcare professional.

Unfortunately things are changing as from April 2013 the legal aid system is undergoing radical reform. From next April the Legal Services Commission who manage legal aid funding in England and Wales will become a new entity known as the "Legal Aid Agency". Legal aid will no longer be offered across the board for clinical claims. Instead only a narrow band of claims (for example claims for damages caused by a neurological injury to a baby, resulting in them being severely disabled) will continue to be covered as a clinical negligence case by legal aid.

The Legal Aid Agency unlike its former incarnation can now make profit, this is a hugely radical shift. If a claimant using legal aid is successful the Legal Services Commission will automatically take up to 25% of certain elements of the compensation award. There are some aspects which are ring-fenced but, compensation for pain and suffering is not.

This move will hit people hard as they are faced with losing a percentage of their award to cover some of the most serious claims on the spectrum. But worse still is the fact that many claims will not now get off the ground as people who would otherwise have received legal aid are now scared off by the prospect of No win No fee advice.

Sad times for the industry and for the country.

Admiral make £24.5m per annum on referral fees

Admiral, the well known UK insurer recently confirmed it rakes in £24.5 million in fees from solicitors who buy personal injury referrals from their vast accident network. This astonishing sum amounted to 25% of their revenues for 2011.

Now given that referral fees are being banned from April 2013 in the personal injury field, what will become of Admirals hugely profitable referral mechanism..? The answer is that they will no doubt set themselves up as an ABS and develop an offshoot law firm. Rather incongruous circular arrangement when you consider there might be thousands of passengers suing negligent Admiral drivers via their own network at some point in the future. 

The lie that the insurer lobbyists propagate is that they do not fuel the so called "compensation culture" by selling leads en-masse for profit. The fact that Admiral have published such huge figures underlines how crucial PI referrals are to big insurers.

But times will soon be changing and it will be interesting to see how the insurer market reacts.   

Ministry of Justice report on the RTA claims process

Interesting report just published by our friends at the MOJ who are obviously determined to emphasise the success of the RTA Portal that has been set up to deal with road accident personal injury claims.

The findings, which one can only assume are slanted in favour of the portal system, to a large extent suggest only a modest outcome on the performance metrics that were measured.

Snapshot here:

"Small but statistically significant reductions in mean general damages, mean costs and mean speed of settlement in low-value RTA claims were found. The evidence suggests around a 6% reduction in mean general damages, a fall of around 3–4% in average costs, and a reduction of around 5–7% in the average delay to settlement. The results are based on a total of 7,416 pre-Portal and 8,584 post-Portal claims that reached a settlement within the observation period."

But these meagre savings are in fact just a minor part of what is a wider assault on the personal injury industry. The real objective is to a) streamline (dumb down) the RTA process and then b) cut the fixed fee that lawyers receive.
Cue more changes next year. Law firms that specialise in PI must diversify or ... die. Its that simple.

Main MOJ report can be found here

The future of whiplash claims management in the UK

As discussed in earlier dispatches the government is taking the subject of compensation claims seriously at the moment. The firm belief is that we are a nation of "claimers" and complainers for which we have been branded Europes most litigious nation. Rather odd given that our nearest neighbours the French tend to sue at the drop of a hat and negligence is rarely debated in detail meaning insurers pay out willy nilly.

Here in the UK things are different. To make a claim there has to be significant blame. 

One area though has come under fire and that is the whiplash claims niche.

To fight against the tide of "spurious" claims the government has now decided to create a panel of trusted medical experts to examine claimants rather than rely upon the solicitors choice of expert. The latter potentially being biased in favour of a dodgy claimant. This initiative is sensible but unlikely to hold water. The numbers of claimants will approach 500,000 this year and no panel or even small army of experts can cope with this volume.

Nevertheless we are in interesting times and one thing seems certain, the powers that be genuinely believe there is a compensation culture in Britain and they seem determined to do something to stop the rot.

Insurer led government "crackdown" on whiplash claims

The big legal news this week concerned the so called crackdown on fraudulent whiplash claims which according to some observers, costs the average motorist £90 per year in extra premiums.

I have no problem with insurers going on the attack where fraud is concerned. The term "crash for cash" is commonly heard nowadays but this concept is often wrongly applied to all whiplash claims including those cases involving serious debilitating injury.

In my career (Im a personal injury lawyer in case you didnt know) I have come across a 3 types of claimant when it comes to whiplash compensation matters:

1) The genuinely injured: categorised by those who take time off work, need physio and generally are in some difficulty with their injuries.

2) Those with minor injuries who think it is their right to claim even where low grade harm has been suffered.

3) Fraudsters with no injury at all but who know they can get away with pretending there is one.

Cat 1& 2 claimants are in my view justified in bringing their claims. There is a genuine injury and if they have suffered a degree of pain / suffering ... it follows this should be compensated for.

Cat 3 claimants can be spotted a mile away and should be dealt with.

The question for our industry is ... what can we do to help here..?

I would suggest the following:

Senior management within the law firm should make it a priority to root out time wasters and fraudsters

They should reward staff for doing this rather than castigate them for "losing" a client.

Lawyers should accept that low velocity impacts - unless in extreme circumstances - ought not to result in a claim. Set the causation bar high in these cases.

Lawyers should run fraud checks of their own and have access to the CRU database to review a claimants history.

Finally lawyers should use tried and trusted medical experts who can themselves nail a dodgy claimant - the claimant should be charged the medical experts fee where fraud has been unearthed. The man down the pub who told you to try it on and claim will not be the one paying your £300 medical fee if it goes wrong. Word gets out, people think twice.

I actually believe that the legal industry should regulate these claims more closely rather than allow the defendant lobbyists to take control and more importantly take the high ground.

The real question is ... are senior people at the top of the law firm tree prepared to clean up this industry from within..?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9240363/Whiplash-claims-add-90-a-year-to-car-insurance-bill.html

Whiplash claim assault

This week will see a scathing assault on the whiplash claim industry as more and more insurers are seeking to clamp down on the so called compensation culture.

Insurers are developing ways to combat the surge in claims by reverting to superior diagnostic techniques that rule out possible time wasters.

More to follow later in the week as the announcements hit the press.