Associate solicitor, Matthew Tuff in the Major Trauma team, discusses the importance of receiving rehabilitation or treatments for claimants.
Today I am going to be talking to you about the importance of getting rehabilitation or treatments for claimants at as early as stage as possible. Achieving a fair sum of compensation is important, however equally important in my view is getting treatment for people as soon as we can.
The most important thing is your health, and the earlier a person can have treatments, the better the chance of a good outcome. Treatment can include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, it can include counselling where a person suffered trauma and psychological injuries. In the case of a brain injury it can include neuropsychology, speech and language therapy. We also look at whether people may need equipment or adaptations to cope with their injuries, or input from a support worker or carer.
At the start of a case, as soon as we are instructed, we will write to the defendant’s insurance company – asking them to let us know as soon as possible whether they will consider providing funds for the clients to have treatment. It is voluntary, but in our experience, most insurance companies do agree. Once they do, we then arrange for someone called a rehabilitation manager to go out and visit the injured person (either at a hospital or a home) as soon as possible, to assess what treatment they need in the short term and what equipment. They’ll then prepare report setting out what they believe the client needs and what the costs of it are, and we’ll then ask the insurance company to confirm that they will fund that treatment and equipment and so forth.
The rehabilitation code 2015, a voluntary code that many insurance companies, and claimants law firms including Moore Barlow, have signed up to.
Trevor Sterling, who is the head of the Major Trauma Service – was one of the people who helped to write this code. This code encourages both sides to look at providing treatment as soon as possible. One particular advantage of having rehabilitation or treatment provided under this system is that the insurance company pays for the cost of the treatments on top of the compensation that the injured person gets at the end of the case (the cost of that treatment is not taken out of their compensation at the end.)
Our team also has our own in-house rehabilitation coordinator, Claire Salisbury. She is a experienced worker with rehabilitation, she used to be a trauma physiotherapist at the major trauma centre St. George’s hospital. She helps to monitor provide quality control for the different rehabilitation companies we use. She can provide advice on reports that are received, and in those rare cases where the defendant insurance company does not agree to provide rehabilitation, she is very experienced in helping to provide and access for people NHS treatment.
We work very closely with a number of NHS major trauma centre hospitals, including St. George’s hospital and King’s College hospital, and they refer patients to us in the knowledge that not only are we experts in getting all the compensation that a patient is entitled to, but that we are passionate about getting rehabilitation for all of our clients.
If you have any questions or would like further information, contact Matthew Tuff on 020 8334 0313 or by email at Matthew.Tuff@moorebarlow.com
