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.

Legal Aid bill defeated in the Lords

Good news for personal injury lawyers is thin on the ground right now but this week saw a glimmer of hope for an industry that at times feels literally as though it is under siege.

The Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke has suffered a setback in his efforts to cut £350m off the legal aid budget as his controversial reforms were defeated in the House of Lords.

Peers voted in favour of amendments put forward by shadow attorney general Baroness Scotland which will provide protection for victims of domestic violence. The government had wanted to place a 12-month time limit on domestic violence evidence presented in qualifying for legal aid, but the amendment states there will be no time limit. The amendment will also clearly state what forms of evidence may be presented when deciding whether a victim should be eligible for legal aid.

The setbacks for the government came at the beginning of the report stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill in the Lords. Baroness Scotland said that Clarke’s proposals, if accepted, would have turned the clock back by a decade and would place victims of domestic violence at an “unacceptable risk”.

Peers also voted to state in the legislation that people ought to have access to legal services “within the resources made available” while they also voted against protecting the director of legal aid casework from ministerial interference.

The Ministry of Justice has already announced concessions in relation to possible medical negligence claims and stated last week that children who suffer brain damage at birth will still be entitled to legal aid. The ministry said: “A safety net will continue to exist for other more serious and complex clinical negligence cases where there is a human rights issue.”

A victory for common sense in my opinion. If legal aid was removed completely for clinical negligence actions, many seriously injured victims (including children and the elderly) would have no access to justice should the worst happen.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2110773/Lords-block-bid-slash-legal-aid-budget-setback-Clarke-s-plans.html

The PIP scandal and the role of the MHRA

A barrister friend of mine recently put together a paper which discussed the PIP implant debacle which has begun to unfold into one of the great medical scandals to hit the UK in recent times. Cosmetic surgery negligence can be hard to prove in many cases but the facts surrounding the PIP story are truly staggering.

My friend wrote:

The latest scandal to hit the mammoplasty industry relates to  breast implants produced by Poly Implant Prostheses (PIP).   In 2010 France banned the implants produced by PIP due to the belief that there was an increased chance of the implants rupturing and leading to complications.  In fact, it  was found that the company had been using industrial grade silicone, normally used for fitting mattresses and computer parts, instead of medical grade silicone; the usage of this cheaper silicone saved the company approximately £840m per year. Worryingly, it is estimated that over 40,000 women in the UK have had breast implants produced by PIP since 2001.

The legal industry has been lobbying the government for many years via the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ("MHRA") warning them to wake up to the risks involved with breast implants and the manufacturing process. As far back as 2003 law firms have been raising concerns about the failure rate of some of the implant prostheses but the MHRA / NHS simply took no notice.

Now that this scandal has been the subject of a media frenzy (righly so) the government have kicked into action. However it is far too late for many women who continue to face an uncertain future. There are moves afoot to commence group action litigation against the MHRA and the government with the primary argument being that they did too little too late whilst allegedly being aware of the true facts for a considerable period of time.

This story will run for some time yet but for the 40,000 unlucky PIP recipients, one can only hope the government brings the uncertainty and misery to an end any time soon.