Benefits of rehabilitation

The purpose of a civil law claim for personal injury compensation is, as far as possible, to put the injured person back into the position they would have been had the incident not have occurred in the first place.

After all, would you expect anything less if you had sustained a serious injury through no fault of your own? As an example, a pedestrian walking on the pavement when a drunk driver on his mobile phone loses control of his car causing it to mount the pavement to strike the pedestrian from behind resulting in serious injury.

Taking the above example, let us say this fictitious pedestrian is “You” and as a result of the collision you suffered an injury to the brain. After the incident you are transferred by Air Ambulance to a Major Trauma Centre at a leading Hospital. You are operated on, placed into the High Dependency Unit, and after many weeks you are moved on to the Ward.

In this scenario the injury to your brain has caused you to suffer impaired speech, difficulty with coordination, and short term memory loss. Also, the nursing staff notice you are a bit short tempered with them. Although for the purpose of this example you retain mental capacity but if this had been lost then the appointment of a Deputy to handle some or all of your affairs would be required.

You are keen to leave hospital to re-join your partner and young child at the family home. You are also worried because you had before the incident just started a new job and were the sole breadwinner in the family. If you don’t work then there is no income for the family.

You have been told by the hospital Consultant that it is unlikely you would be able to return to work for some time. You are also told that you will be discharged home from the hospital into the care of your local hospital outpatient appointments for continuing therapy treatment. However, you understand due to the area in which you live there is a shortage of NHS brain injury specialists which may delay your treatment which causes you anxiety.

Your partner contacts the mortgage lender because she is worried the next mortgage payment will not be met. The lender whilst going through with your partner a list of possible income sources asks whether a personal injury claim was being pursued. With everything going on you had not previously considered the instruction of a solicitor, and your partner discusses this with you on their next daily visit to hospital.

Having made enquiries of law firms who specialise in serious injury claims you meet with a solicitor who you then instruct. You are subsequently informed by the solicitor that he has spoken with the insurance company for the driver and in light of the incident circumstances they had admitted responsibility for the incident.

Also, the solicitor is able to confirm that he has secured from the insurance company their agreement to invest in your private rehabilitation because it is clear to all parties that early treatment may assist with a better medical outcome for you.

Your solicitor sets about putting the following initial rehabilitation strategy into place:-

•  The insurance company makes a general interim payment in the sum of £x to be set off against the final award of compensation. This will alleviate some of the financial stress and allow you to meet payments such as the mortgage;
  
  
• The insurance company agrees to fund for your solicitor to privately appoint a specialist Brain Injury Case Manager who meets with you to prepare an assessment of your Immediate Needs and requirements for the next 6 months. This leads to the following being organised with funding from the insurance company:-