A motorcyclist who suffered devastating head injuries when he collided with a plough on a country road will receive a substantial sum in compensation to assist with the lifetime of care he will need.
The man was overtaking a line of stationary traffic when he collided with the plough, which was protruding from the rear of a tractor which was turning left. He and his pillion passenger were both instantly knocked unconscious and the motorbike continued onward for another 150 yards before falling onto the grass verge.
The tractor was being driven by a teenager, who had obtained his licence a year earlier, and the solid metal plough was alleged to have extended over the road’s centre white line. The motorcyclist will require care and support for the rest of his life, although he is anxious to live as independently as possible.
A personal injury claim was brought against the company that owned the tractor. Liability for the accident was in dispute, but negotiations yielded a settlement of the case. The High Court approved a compromise that involves the payment of substantial compensation, although the exact figures involved were kept confidential.
The contents of this article are intended for general information purposes only and shall not be deemed to be, or constitute legal advice. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss as a result of acts or omissions taken in respect of this article.
It is not unusual in personal injury cases where a claim is made on behalf of a person who has suffered life-changing injuries for the courts to acknowledge the devotion and selflessness of family members who care for their disabled loved ones without expecting anything in return.
In a recent ruling, however, the Court of Protection sanctioned payment of a £23,000-a-year carer’s allowance to a man who had given up his professional career in order to look after his incapacitated sister.
The sister had been awarded a compensation package worth millions from the NHS following allegedly negligent brain surgery. The operation had not cured the epilepsy which she had suffered from since infancy and left her suffering from profound memory loss, impaired decision making and intermittent psychosis.
Her younger brother, aged in his 50s and a father of two, had given up his well-paid job in order to work full time as her carer and case manager. However, a difficulty arose because he also acted as her official deputy, bearing responsibility for managing her financial affairs. Thousands of family carers in that position are not allowed to profit from the role which they perform and must always ensure that their personal interests do not conflict with their duties.
In a ruling which gives hope to those in a similar situation, the Court approved payment of a carer’s allowance to the man, observing that he had willingly sacrificed his own interests and provided his sister with an exemplary service. The modest annual sums to be paid to him from his sister’s compensation were easily affordable and represented a considerable saving when compared with what she would have had to pay for a team of professional carers.
The contents of this article are intended for general information purposes only and shall not be deemed to be, or constitute legal advice. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss as a result of acts or omissions taken in respect of this article.
A cap on spending on NHS agency staff has come into force in England on Monday 23 November 2015, which aims to save £1bn over the next three years.
These financial controls will help the NHS reduce agency staff bills which reportedly cost the NHS £3.3 billion last year, more than the cost of all that year’s 22 million Accident and Emergency (A&E) admissions combined.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:
“For too long staffing agencies have been able to rip off the NHS by charging extortionate hourly rates which cost billions of pounds a year and undermine staff working hard to deliver high-quality care. The tough new controls on spending that we’re putting in place will help the NHS improve continuity of care for patients and invest in the frontline – while putting an end to the days of unscrupulous companies charging up to £3,500 a shift for a doctor.”
Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said:
“Introducing the cap on the amount trusts pay agencies for staff is the right thing to do. I welcome the fact that this is being phased in, allowing staff and trusts time to adjust and minimising any risks to patient safety. Close monitoring will allow us to assess the impact on individual trusts.CQCs will work closely with NHS Improvement to ensure ongoing patient safety.”
NHS trusts have reportedly been misusing agency staff as a solution to the new staffing levels required by Francis. The shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, claims some of these rising costs can be attributed to staffing cuts in the last parliament and a fall in the number of nurse training places in England.
Since the Frances Inquiry report, a spotlight has been shone on safe staffing levels, particularly in hospitals. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have since released a safe staffing guidance in England, which sets standards in staffing, stressed that the NHS needs a strong, readily available nursing workforce more than ever to continue to meet the guidelines and ensure patient safety.
Linda Levison, Head of Clinical Negligence at Pattinson & Brewer said:
“It is worrying that with the caps on agency and the latest Government budget news on the NHS, there has been no mention of increased funding for frontline staff. The combination in a reduction of staff due to agency fee caps, cuts on bursaries for student nurses and the reduction of foreign nurses, could spell disaster for our NHS if it is not married with an increased commitment to fund further staffing .”
Although this is not intended to be a punishment for agency staff, but for the private businesses making millions from the NHS system, we can only hope that our NHS does see devastating long term effects by clarifying how these savings will be spent on improving the service for patients.
George Bernard Shaw once said “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” Mistakes should be seen as an opportunity to improve.
However according to a report obtained by the BBC, one of England’s largest mental health and learning disability providers has failed to investigate the unexplained deaths of more than 1,000 mental health and learning disability patients.
The initial investigation was prompted following the death of 18 year old Connor Sparrowhawk in 2013. Connor, who suffered from learning disabilities and autism, drowned in the bath whilst he was a patient at a Unit operated by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. A Jury Inquest found that neglect contributed to Connor’s death.
The resulting report found that, between April 2011 and March 2015, almost 10,306 patients had died whilst under the care of the Trust. Of these, 1,454 were unexpected. Inexplicably, the Trust categorised only 272 deaths as “critical incidents”, of which only 13% were subject to a Serious Incident Investigation. For patients older than 65 with mental health problems, only 0.03% of deaths were investigated. Sadly, even when investigations were carried out, they were of a poor quality, extremely late and often contained careless and distressing errors.
The report is very critical of the Trust’s senior leadership team, which repeatedly failed to act upon warnings from Coroners that their investigations were inadequate. Although the Trust now accepts that their reporting has not always been good enough, they have serious concerns about the evidence, which they intend to challenge.
The issues raised within this report are not unique to Southern NHS Foundation Trust. It cannot be denied that patients with learning disabilities continue to experience delays in diagnosis and poor care. It has been found that 1,200 deaths of people with learning disabilities could have been avoided. It is hoped that this report will send shockwaves through the NHS and prompt real and effective improvement and change. NHS England must learn lessons from the report and encourage a culture of transparency among all heath care agencies to prevent further avoidable deaths. Only then will patients with learning disabilities receive the healthcare that they deserve.