An appeal has gone out from leading clinicians in the area of whiplash for a new consensus over how to tackle the growing problem.
The demands come as a November conference has been organised to focus specifically on issues including the diagnosing of whiplash, the claims process encompassing it and treatment and rehabilitation available for the ailment. Parliament, along with representatives from the legal and insurance sectors, are due to be in attendance to try and gain a greater understanding of the difficulties associated with whiplash and ways to resolve them.
To many people, news a conference will convene to try and tackle the issue is welcome, as figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) claim that over 2bn a year is currently invested in whiplash claims with the cost being passed on to motorists through their insurance premiums. The ABI statistics also reveal that over 1,200 claims for whiplash are presently being made each day.
Whiplash and the whole subject of a so-called compensation culture are currently hot topics in the media and former Justice Secretary Jack Straw has become particularly vocal of late. He has bemoaned the big increase in the number and valuation of whiplash claims being made and has said of whiplash that it is now not so much a condition as a "profitable intervention of the human imagination". He continued to suggest that whiplash is undiagnosable, except by third-rate doctors who are being affected by claims management companies and personal injury lawyers.
The conference, which will take place on 2 November at the King's Fund in London, will be chaired by Dr Nick Kendall, an authority on soft tissue injuries such as whiplash and will look at how some techniques, already used worldwide, can be adopted in this country to avoid the UK becoming "the whiplash capital of the world". Organisers hope that, at the conference, an agreed document may be made available to the government and the insurance industry. The proceedings will be hosted by four eminent professors and also will feature speakers from Germany and Canada as well as the UK.
Dr Kendall has said that there is an urgent requirement to take another look at commonly held assumptions about whiplash and the question 'is there a better way?' needs to be asked. He said that currently, there exists much debate about injury prevention, the claims process and medical management and says that, up to now, none of those areas have been fully tackled.
At a previous conference, James Walton, assistant director of the ABI, referring to figures, which show that the UK is already the whiplash capital of Europe, said he doubted whether the UK had the weakest necks throughout the continent and said that, with the condition being difficult to diagnose and relatively simple to exaggerate, whiplash 'is a fraudster's dream'.
The ABI says a partnership between healthcare professionals along with insurers and lawyers could operate together to tackle whiplash claims, to manage it effectively on the occasions it does occur and assist in preventing fraudulent claims.
Jack Straw's arguments on whiplash claims were a part of his wider comments calling for reform of the whole motor insurance industry in which he described referral fees as a 'racket' and called on the government to implement measures originally made by Lord Justice Jackson in a report a year ago, in which he urged that referral fees be banned.
The current Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, recently, did announce that the government was to act to ban referral fees, adding there was a merry-go-round of frivolous claims which were placing an unacceptable burden on hard-working families and he says that a ban will be a victory for common sense.
The demands come as a November conference has been organised to focus specifically on issues including the diagnosing of whiplash, the claims process encompassing it and treatment and rehabilitation available for the ailment. Parliament, along with representatives from the legal and insurance sectors, are due to be in attendance to try and gain a greater understanding of the difficulties associated with whiplash and ways to resolve them.
To many people, news a conference will convene to try and tackle the issue is welcome, as figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) claim that over 2bn a year is currently invested in whiplash claims with the cost being passed on to motorists through their insurance premiums. The ABI statistics also reveal that over 1,200 claims for whiplash are presently being made each day.
Whiplash and the whole subject of a so-called compensation culture are currently hot topics in the media and former Justice Secretary Jack Straw has become particularly vocal of late. He has bemoaned the big increase in the number and valuation of whiplash claims being made and has said of whiplash that it is now not so much a condition as a "profitable intervention of the human imagination". He continued to suggest that whiplash is undiagnosable, except by third-rate doctors who are being affected by claims management companies and personal injury lawyers.
The conference, which will take place on 2 November at the King's Fund in London, will be chaired by Dr Nick Kendall, an authority on soft tissue injuries such as whiplash and will look at how some techniques, already used worldwide, can be adopted in this country to avoid the UK becoming "the whiplash capital of the world". Organisers hope that, at the conference, an agreed document may be made available to the government and the insurance industry. The proceedings will be hosted by four eminent professors and also will feature speakers from Germany and Canada as well as the UK.
Dr Kendall has said that there is an urgent requirement to take another look at commonly held assumptions about whiplash and the question 'is there a better way?' needs to be asked. He said that currently, there exists much debate about injury prevention, the claims process and medical management and says that, up to now, none of those areas have been fully tackled.
At a previous conference, James Walton, assistant director of the ABI, referring to figures, which show that the UK is already the whiplash capital of Europe, said he doubted whether the UK had the weakest necks throughout the continent and said that, with the condition being difficult to diagnose and relatively simple to exaggerate, whiplash 'is a fraudster's dream'.
The ABI says a partnership between healthcare professionals along with insurers and lawyers could operate together to tackle whiplash claims, to manage it effectively on the occasions it does occur and assist in preventing fraudulent claims.
Jack Straw's arguments on whiplash claims were a part of his wider comments calling for reform of the whole motor insurance industry in which he described referral fees as a 'racket' and called on the government to implement measures originally made by Lord Justice Jackson in a report a year ago, in which he urged that referral fees be banned.
The current Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, recently, did announce that the government was to act to ban referral fees, adding there was a merry-go-round of frivolous claims which were placing an unacceptable burden on hard-working families and he says that a ban will be a victory for common sense.
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