Sunday, November 18, 2007

UK gripped by 'no compensation' culture

This is a straight lift from the excellent trade union health & safety E-Newsletter “Risks”. Published weekly for free by the TUC and editored by the well respected Rory O'Neill of Hazards magazine. If you are at all interested in health & safety at work then click on and sign up.

This “real news story” is something that you will not pick up from the shameful British tabloid press.

The number of workplace personal injury claims is low and falling fast, new research for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has found.

The study by researchers from the University of Warwick's School of Law has undermined the popular view that UK citizens are engaging in a spiralling 'compensation culture' with ever increasing claims against allegedly negligent companies and organisations.

The researchers investigated whether there had been an increase in claims for damages arising from occupational injury or ill-health related to breaches of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
They found the number of legal actions was consistently falling in both the High Court and the County Courts.

These conclusions were also supported by the observations of a wide range of legal practitioners, insurers, employers' associations and trade unions who participated in the Warwick research.

The report confirms TUC's 2005 finding that compensation culture is 'a myth' (Risks 217).webpages.

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