NHS compensation system unsustainable, says insurer

[Northerner]

Compensation settlements for medical negligence running into billions of pounds are placing an unsustainable burden on the NHS, according to an organisation that insures doctors.

The Medical Defence Union pointed to figures showing a rapid rise in the value of settlements, pushing up liabilities to ?16.7bn in 2011.

The MDU chief executive, Christine Tomkins, said it was time to change a system that was introduced in 1948 ? the year the NHS was created ? and requires compensation to cover the cost of private care for victims of NHS negligence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/11/nhs-compensation-unsustainable-insurer

 

[trophywench]

Well of course the NHS in 1948 was incapable of providing that care wasn't it?

And frankly it's incapable now isn't it? Cos it doesn't have the resources for several to one live-in care, which is more or less what you get in long-term compensation claims. And if you are left in a vegetative state and need truning every so often then you do need 3or 4people to do that. 24 hrs a day. And nobody will want that care to be in say Manchester if their home and family is in say Cornwall so you wouldn't ever get economies of scale by treating more than the odd person here and there in the same facility, would you?

How else do they handle it that guarantees the care as they have to by law, or are they saying it shouldn't guarantee that, and how can that be right because if the damage to your person happened in a road accident or an industrial accident then you would - by law - get damages at that level.