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UK News - Breaking news in the field of health and safety
New scheme now allows NHS to recover treatment costs for....
New scheme now allows NHS to recover treatment costs for personal injury
The Injury Cost Recovery Scheme regulations came into force today, January 29th 2007, permitting the NHS to claim back money for treating people who have been paid personal injury compensation.
The new scheme is expected to raise significantly more for the NHS than the £115m per annum the RTA scheme currently does, the NHS Injury Costs Recovery (ICR) scheme means costs being recovered from insurance companies for treating patients in all cases where personal injury compensation is paid.
Both schemes apply only to NHS treatment provided in NHS hospitals, however the ICR scheme will also allow the recovery of the costs of ambulance services to take the injured person to an NHS hospital. The costs of treatment provided in the primary care sector, eg by General Practitioners, is not recoverable under either scheme.
Comment:
"Although this scheme will undeniably raise useful additional sums of money for hospitals it is not simply about raising more cash. It is based on the legal rights of the NHS and the responsibilities of those to blame. We hope it will act as an additional impetus to improving health and safety. This policy will encourage employers to take steps to prevent employees being injured and when implemented should increase the total recouped each year to around £300m for the NHS. The scheme will not introduce any more extra regulations for businesses and will be based on the current RTA scheme.
It is unacceptable that taxpayers have to pay for the medical treatment of someone injured at work simply because employers fail to take adequate steps to protect their workforce. Individual hospitals will now be able to recover the costs and decide where they want to reinvest that money to improve services they want." - DoH.
