The claimant's view: a sledgehammer to crack a tabloid nut

29/07/2010

On 15 July, David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, told a joint meeting with the Trades Union Congress â entitled ‘Is Deregulation Dead?’ â that his members are generally happy with and understand health and safety regulations. This was reassuring, given the impression from Lord Young (who is carrying out a review of health and safety for David Cameron), that businesses are clamouring for regulations that protect workers to be stripped away.

But Mr Frost was less keen on a suggestion that the BCC, given its support for health and safety regulations, join with the TUC, the unions and Thompsons in explaining to Lord Young the dangers of pursuing certain proposals â such as excluding emergency workers from health and safety laws because they are “paid for doing a job that involves risk”.

His Lordship’s official brief is to “investigate and report back to the Prime Minister on the rise of the compensation culture over the last decade coupled with the current low standing that health and safety legislation now enjoys and to suggest solutions”.

Thompsons has sent Lord Young evidence showing that all the reports and all the statistics prove there is no compensation culture. There may well be a tabloid-driven perception of compensation culture â which no insurer mindful of premiums will rush to dismiss â but removing protection for firefighters, paramedics and other emergency service workers is a dangerous sledgehammer to crack a tabloid nut.

Lord Young has been widely quoted pointing out the absurdity of the many stories that abound â from toothpicks being unavailable in restaurants to pancake racers having to walk in wet weather. We have taken Lord Young at face value and assumed that, rather than seeking to perpetuate the myths, he is highlighting what are, in anyone’s eyes, clearly misinterpretations of the law.

Myths are being exploited or, indeed, on occasions made up by the media to maintain a favourite theme. In the process they attribute to health and safety, rules and powers and limitations that are completely false. It is a many headed monster that the tabloids love to make roar.

If Lord Young’s review intends to look at real personal injury claims â ones that result in formal claims for compensation recorded by the government’s Compensation Recovery Unit (as all claims must be) â then he will see that compensation claims for people injured at work and out of work are falling consistently.

There is a simple cost-effective way to dampen down any perception of a compensation culture: initiate a public information campaign about health and safety laws using the Health & Safety Executive myth of the month as a starter.

Through national and regional newspaper adverts, films on You Tube and social networking sites the government could: 1) reassure the public that there is no compensation culture and no need to fear health and safety regulations; 2) explain what the regulations really say and how they protect people; and 3) set out what people’s rights to sue for compensation actually are.

Any insurers out there willing to part fund the campaign?

Tom Jones is a partner at Thompsons Solicitors

Original Article: Post