The campaign to retain the presumption that personal injury compensation should pay for private healthcare faces a new battle front, with legislation on the table to reform the status quo.
A private member's bill was laid in the Commons last week by Labour's Catherine McKinnell to amend the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, which has been in force since 1948. The measure entitles claimants to recover the cost of private medical treatment, providing it is proportionate and necessary.
Introducing the bill in parliament last week McKinnell, formerly a practising solicitor, said the ‘long-standing anomaly’ prevents consideration that the NHS may be better placed to provide ongoing care. Medical defence groups suggest that injured people are using the NHS irrespective of the damages they have received, she said.
‘As it stands, it can lead to the state effectively being double-charged,’ McKinnell said. ‘To ensure that every pound is focused on improving care and preventing harm, we must finally amend and update this law - this 1948 relic - to reflect modern-day reality.’
Few private members’ bills make it into law, but McKinnell’s proposal – which also includes provision for a fixed recoverable costs scheme – adds to the growing number of voices saying the private healthcare assumption is outdated and irrational. The rapidly increasing cost of clinical negligence claims in particular has fuelled the movement towards reform, with the Common Public Accounts Committee saying earlier this year that changes were ‘long overdue’.
The committee pointed to anecdotal evidence suggesting that many claimants still access NHS services, meaning their damages have been inflated unnecessarily.
But the claimant lobby remains vehemently in favour of preserving the provision for private healthcare damages – and says they have public support.
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers said its polling shows that 51% of UK adults think that claimants should receive the costs of being treated privately, with 35% opposed. APIL said only 4% of all clinical negligence damages spending relates to therapy and treatment, with the vast majority of damages relating to losses such as social care, which would not be affected by any law change.
Guy Forster, APIL vice president, said reforming the 1948 act would not significantly reduce spending and would serve only to deprive injured people of the treatment they need.
‘Not only would it be deeply damaging and unfair for victims of negligence, but there would be detrimental unintended consequences for the NHS itself,’ he said. ‘Rehabilitation in cases of very serious injury is a postcode lottery in the NHS and yet the right rehabilitation can be crucial if the injured person is to have any decent quality of life.'
Victims would also be forced to return to the establishment which harmed them, Forster added. 'Some people need care for the rest of their lives and should not be at the mercy of the system which let them down.’
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