Posted By Jim Walker I've just finished reading this too, as you say, a good article (warning). H&S aside, has anyone ever read a report in a newspaper (local or national)of an event that you have direct knowledge of, where the report has been accurate? because I haven't. I was reading a article in the Times yesterday about the general public's ignorance of science ( evidently, most think its dangers of science, do not outweigh the benefits). The author's (a scientist) complaints about the press were the same as we (H&S professionals) have. Newspapers are entertainment and journalists are entertainers. They find the real world too boring to live in.

Posted By Jim Walker David, Spot on! The ambulance chasers exist because the insurance companies & beancounters enable them to.

Posted By John Allen Once again I am forced to correct a misunderstanding. If society is becoming more and more litigious it is not in the category of accident claims. The number of claims has decreased year on year since the late 90s. Most people who have accidents at work (about 90%) don’t claim. If someone does claim, and is successful, the courts impose strict rules which limit the amount which can be claimed. It sometimes takes years to take a case through to completion with no guarantee of success. The government introduced “no win – no fee” cases to reduce the amount paid out by the taxpayer in legal aid. You can’t have it both ways. The real cause of the current anti- H&S attitude in the media has nothing to do with litigation. I believe it is because we live in a society where people, of all ages and all walks of life have no respect for authority and won’t “take a telling” from anyone on any issue, ever. At one end of the scale is the hoodie spraying paint on a wall, at the other the other the businessman who speeds through a built up area while talking on his phone. Both are symptoms of the same malaise. Look at the hostility to any road safety or environmental measures including the recent increase in penalties for using a handheld mobile phone while driving. Another interesting symptom of the culture is the growth in conspiracy theories. No one ever believes the “official” explanation anymore. Now I don't think this is an entirely negative thing. It is not wrong in itself to question authority: the decisions of government, local authorities and business should always be open to scrutiny. But within the media what was once legitimate investigative journalism has in many cases deteriorated into invasion of privacy and petty finger pointing. We are often in the position of telling people what they can and cannot do, or H&S is often used as a justification by others in authority for what can or cannot be done. This puts H&S professionals, like it or not, in the same authority figure category as police, traffic wardens, speed cameras, council officials and tax inspectors. Most of the so-called “conkers bonkers” stories are either lies, or gross distortions of the truth. Unfortunately, unlike we safety professionals, the media has no responsibility towards the public or people at work, and can continue to take cheap shots at our expense, devaluing our profession and undermining improvements in safety at work. The least we can do is not give credence to the myths ourselves and that includes the myth of the litigious society.

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith Unfortunately there is a hole in the conditional fee system for personal injury, which means that the majority of small claims (greater than £1000) are never contested. Basically as the threshold for whither cases are heard in small claims courts and county courts is as low as £1,000 if there is no question that plaintive was injured as a result of the defendants negligence no matter how slight this was, my experience is that this is always going to be a lose, lose situation for the defendant no matter how ridicules the claim is. If this threshold were higher (say £5,000) and the balance of risk was shifted, then I am sure that many more claims would be examined in more detail.

Posted By J Knight Hi Folks, The thing that's missing from the cries that 'society is becoming too litigous' and 'what happened to personal responsibility' is that corporations and employers also have responsibility, and in most of the cases I know of where my employer has been succesfully sued it is because they have failed to adequately discharge that responsibility. There is no way, other than a legal hearing, to screen claims in terms of justified or vexatious, and I would hate to see it tried. Jim, you ask if people know of any other area where the meeja gets its facts wrong. Well, there are a couple of things I know about, in particular evolution and taxonomy, cycling and european history. Whenever journos talk about any of these, especially the first, they are almost always dead wrong, unless they are one of the few in each case who can be described as a real specialist. Hence my extreme cynicism about the state of the UK's press, John

Posted By Pete48 Brian, I take a different view of this. I am in the camp that says the "claim for everything" society is a street myth, the data does not support this. Making access to justice for all was a vitally needed improvement in our legal system that should never be allowed to be taken away. It may need some tweaking as outlined by previous posters but it must not be lost. As to the media matters, it is too easy to blame them for the societal failures they report. Our modern "news" media is designed to produce stories with messages, not to report the facts and if they can "break" a story open then even better. Almost every story will inevitably contain inaccuracies, opinion, facts and plain old-fashioned prejudice and/or vested interest. Ratings drive "being first" rather than "being right". Nothing wrong with any of that, if the viewers and readers did not want it and switched off it would stop. However, what I cannot understand is quite why modern society accepts, almost without question, what the media produce as representing truth, the only truth...?" How many people have told you in the last few days that they "know " what caused the train derailment in Cumbria??? And finally, and somewhat ironically, according to this months IIRSM newsletter; a recent study by the Int Fed of Journos reports that last year was the bloodiest year with at least 155 killed and 22 accidental deaths. Strange that I don't remember seeing that in headlines all over the UK press, why not I wonder? They seemed delighted to print stories about the HSE safety failures after all.

Posted By John Lewis I agree wholeheartedly with David Bannister that we should fight everything.In my last role I carried on a policy already in place of fighting every claim made against the company. Together with HR, our claims adjusters and the line managers we succesfully reduced EL claims from about 50 a year to (I think) 4 in my last year there. Allied with this was a strict policy also of looking after anyone genuinely and verifiably injured at work to the best of our ability. This extended to sending a pool car to take people to outpatients appointments. Over the years the good people saw that the company cared and that people generally seen to be "wasters" were being challenged, the number of claims reduced dramatically. It coincided with a period when we achieved OHSAS 18001 so systems were improving anyway, however I believe that the reductions in claims would still have been worthwhile. In the current job I am not even told if a claim has been submitted, challenged or paid. Strange world we live in. John