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Does anyone really think the compensation culture is a myth?
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Posted By Tabs
There is an odd convention growing on the forum of quoting the BBC and not much else.
So someone claimed for a personal injury. Peter, do you think that proves or disproves a whole culture? Personally I don't.
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Posted By Peter MacDonald
The question mark is a clue.
For the record I personally think it's indicative of a claims culture. More than that it annoys me.
Sorry if you don't think it worthy of a post but the general aim of a chat forum is to chat! Some are higher quality post than others. I accept mine is not one of those. I'm sorry you decided to post a sarky reply but there you go.
Maybe I could claim on the basis of hurt feelings.
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Posted By Jimmy R
A good example of how a headline can be misleading therefore giving the system a bad name. Once you read into the article however it can be seen that the prison authority failed in their duty to provide a suitable surface to play football on, which resulted in this guy injuring himself. In a fast, rough game of football the last thing you need introduced is a trip hazard or uneven playing surface. Give him the money.
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Posted By Chris Packham
Personally, I am very cautious about how I interpret this type of report. Reporters are notoriously selective in the information they use in a report, as I know from personal experience. We do not have the full story or all the evidence produced in court so are not in possession of all the facts, just those that might suit a particular reporter's purpose.
I always remember being told by a leading reporter to a national newspaper some years ago: "Chris, the business of newspapers is not to bring you the news, but to sell newspapers!"
Cynical? That was him, not me!
Chris
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Hmmm..........in 'proper' 5 aside the ball is out of play if it goes above head height - neither presumably was the IP coerced by the Prison Service into playing the game = contributory negligence?
One has to wonder what sort of defence (if any) was put to the court.
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Posted By John Murgatroyd
One silly decision, albeit without being appraised of the facts, does not a compensation culture make. Don't forget, the vast majority of civil claims are honest claims. You may not like it, but that is:
1. Tough
2. Life
If I injure myself at work, and in the opinion of legal advisors it was due to the employers negligence, (etc) then I would claim against the companies insurance.
You have to bear in mind that, in the majority of cases, employers pay only SSP.
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Posted By Pete48
Peter, a little considered research into the subject using more dependable sources than the popular media would show you that there is much to suggest that "the compensation culture" is a myth.
Are total claims rising or falling? Is the increasing cost of ELI directly linked to the "compensation culture" or not?
What percentage of those who could claim do actually make a claim? How many claims are successful and of those that are what is the % of the claim awarded? Is the number of spurious or malicious claims increasing or not? Are there any statistically valid trends or changes in claims generation since the Woolf report made access easier? Just a few questions that are worth consideration if you really want to decide whether the myth is a myth or reality. I have no doubt that the common view of the "compensation culture" is a complete myth.
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Posted By Dave West
After spending many years on the shop floor i dont believe it is a myth. I have seen many people put in false claims and some were even pre meditated. I worked for a company who had a reputation on the shop floor for settlling out of court for the most silly claims and as the lads knew this it was played on.
We had 2 guys who were proud of the fact that over a few years they had paid off their mortgages with claims of the company.
I thought we had it bad until i was privy to seeing figures for claims at depots across the country and was shocked to see that one depot with a smaller accident rate had 60% more compensation claims. We were told that the depot had a good union rep.
Some of these guys are very wise to the fact that they knew that if there wasn't a risk assessment they would have a better chance of succeeding with a claim. Some even knew what the company's limit was fr settling out of court.
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Posted By Peter MacDonald
OK, so the originals story was in the BBC website and it is one isolated incident but it was one of many that are reported.
I beleive to a that insurance companies and Personal Injury Lawyers are responsible for driving Health and Safety into a position whereby The Law of Diminishing Return, common sense and reality are lost.
Health and safety to responsibily manage your staff and carry out your duty of care is the true nature of Health and Safety. Not to put so many restrictions on peoples working practice that they are removed of any indivdual responsibility just to lower your insurance premiums due to your robust management procedures.
It'll not be long before it will be more desirable to automate everything so their is no chance of injury. Great, zero accident rate and mass unemployment. What a utopia!
£5000 for breaking your leg playing football. Just what the HASWA Act invisaged when it was designed.
Pete
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Posted By Peter MacDonald
Should really spell check and proof read before pressing the "post response" button.
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Posted By Jay Joshi Is anecdotal evidence the basis of discussion or has anyone carried out surveys or seen reliable reports etc.to address this? There is amonst several "reliable" sources, one of them the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee report om "Compensation culture" http://www.parliament.th...ect/cmconst/754/754i.pdfThe conclusion was that rhere are no easy answers to the difficulties exposed in the compensation system during the inquiry. It was evident from the statistical evidence that the UK is not moving towards a “compensation culture” driven by a significant increase in litigation. However, there was ample evidence that risk aversion is becoming an insidious problem which the Government and the Health and Safety Executive must attempt to address. Media will always pick & choose headlines and be selective in reporting. As a specific aspect on health & safety in the prisons, it appears there are issues, otherwise why is this aspect remianing the single most "sticking point" that is preventing the passage of the Corporate Manslaughter Bill to Royal Assent Yes, as is the case with most "systems", some will abuse them, but the proportion does not appear to be as high as made out to be, at least from the reliable reports.
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Posted By Glyn Atkinson
Purely from stats held within my own company database over the past ten years, not only do people know about claim culture, but they are well wise on how to better achieve a pay out, and what area not to be in to make their claims more achievable.
When I took over five years ago, there were files containing over 140 ongoing compensation claims, with few defensible within that number.
I currently have a file of below 40, with 15 of these long term claims from before I started. In my humble opinion, 17 are "hands up - we did something wrong and should pay up" claims, the rest are dubious to say the least, and we defend to the best of our abilities to lower compensation figures.
How do you stop someone cutting themselves after being comprehensively trained by certified trainers?
We cannot put one supervisor behind every worker on the production lines or have the tannoy repeating - "cut away from you not towards you !"
Fully signed and acknowledged risk assessments and safe working procedure documents in place for all work areas as well, correct assessed fit for purpose cutting tools bought and in use.
Unfortunately, in our local hospital lobby is an (approved by the hospital) no-win no-fee solicitor who will drive anyone home and chat to them, sometimes even before we have had chance to interview them ourselves if the casualty has gone straight to hospital via ambulance.
Our union guys will refuse our local first aid facilities including an Occupational Health Nurse being available, and demand to go directly to hospital instead.
We know of people who have witnessed each other "fall" from height or swear blind that liquids were on the floor as slip / trip hazards. They seem to forget that we keep very comprehensive records of accidents and near misses and who was involved in them.
Patterns then emerge - such as days off with pay - when four family members in four different work locations within the lines decided to go to the horse racing one afternoon - all reporting very different symptoms, but forgetting that they were all reporting back to one nurse's database.
We pay people for the full day if the first aiders deem that their "injuries / symptoms" deem them to need to leave work - diarrhoea, food poisoning, migraine etc.
We don't - and didn't - pay for the family to go to the races - they all lost their pay instead of having a paid for day out. This, unfortunately, is the way that a majority of our workers think - how can we trick the firm into paying us for time off !
Sad reflection of some manual workers we employ, yet the Polish workers used at one of our factories have the least time off by a mile through illness or injury for the whole of the production areas!
Things that we have to contend with as part of a safety week !
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Posted By Tabs
Peter,
Perhaps my reply could be read as sarcastic - but it was not. It was questioning your ability to judge a situation on one report, which I saw (on the limited facts) as justifiable anyhow.
As for "It'll not be long before it will be more desirable to automate everything so their is no chance of injury. Great, zero accident rate and mass unemployment. What a utopia!" in your later post...
Again, do you really think so? I worked as a project engineer for many years and can tell you that try as we might, this is a very long way off still.
Perhaps it is already desirable - but desire and practicality are very different. The workforce is an ongoing concern for the foreseeable future.
To my gripe - "the general aim of a chat forum is to chat!" to quote you. A title and a link, does that really constitute 'chat'?
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Does anyone really think the compensation culture is a myth?
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