I am pleased to see that Lord Young of Graffham, tasked with reviewing health and safety rules, holds the health and safety rules which prevent the police and rescue services from actually rescuing people in as much contempt as the rest of us do.
He told the Times that the emergency services were "paid for doing a job that involves risk" and legislation should not be "an excuse for inaction".
He also holds seems to hold the compensation culture, and ambulance chasing "personal injury" lawyers in absolute contempt.
Good!
Muiris Lyons, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, postulated to the BBC the rather bizarre theory that personal injury lawyers want to see accidents reduced:
"Our organisation is all about trying to reduce the incidents of injuries and I'm sure there is common ground there [with the review].
But where people are needlessly injured, through others' fault, they should be able to obtain access to justice."
How exactly does a cash payment bring someone back from the dead, or heal a broken leg (which will have already been attended to by the NHS)?
I will follow the progress of Lord Young's review, and its actual tangible outcomes, with interest.
I do not doubt Lord Young's integrity, nor his desire to end the worst excesses of the Nanny state. However, he has an uphill battle as there are many vested interests who will do their utmost to keep their petty dictatorships and small minded rules going.
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Seeing as how he has got such a difficult task ahead of him, perhaps he would appreciate some support.
ReplyDeleteAny chance of getting an email address for him Ken?
I have tried to find one myself, but with no luck.
"personal injury lawyers want to see accidents reduced"
ReplyDeleteTurkeys voting for Christmas???
It's rather like energy companies helping you to reduce your fuel bill....
I wish him luck - he's going to need it.
Come to think of it, Ken would have to close this blog down if he was successful!
The best of luck to Lord Young: I wish him every success in his efforts. I notice it didn't take long for vested interests to come crawling out of the woodwork!
ReplyDeleteI too support his task and agree with your thoughts Ken.
ReplyDeleteWhen he says that people can take risks, the 'elf'n'safety brigade, which is a very lucrative industry, will use on of their classic responses and ask if you are in favour of putting people's lives and heath at risk....This is a difficult situation to come out of on top.....It is similar to the tactics of the child protection industry; if you oppose anything they suggest, they say you are in favour of child abuse.....The reason why 'elf'n'safety has got such a foothold is because people have become brainwashed to their ideas and insurers fear personal injury lawyers as do businesses and individuals.
It is very difficult to put commonsense into statute especially given that commonsense is no longer common.
Lord Young needs to start in local authorities, that is the breeding ground of what is effectively cultural Marxism.
I wish him luck and God knows, he will need it!!
Perhaps we need to start a campaign along the lines of;
"Say no to the hi-viz jackets." We need to make Nanny's favourite fetish item a thing of universal ridicule....I went into town last week by bus....The driver was wearing a Hi-viz vest, an inspector got on the bus in a hi-viz vest, a passenger that works for Nanny had on a hi-viz vest, we passed a "crodile" of school kids on their way to a sports centre, each wearing a hi-viz vest. We arrived in town, I could see parking wardens, police officers, litter pickers, guide dog for the blind trainers(RNIB is based here in Wokingham) all wearing hi-viz vests.....If everyone wears hi-viz vests, no one stands out so the whole purpose of the vests become null and void.
Hi-Viz Vests; Just say NO!!!!
Oppps Typos;
ReplyDeleteon should read one.
crodile should read crocodile.
"If everyone wears hi-viz vests, no one stands out so the whole purpose of the vests become null and void."
ReplyDeleteSame as the Daytime Running Lights the EU is foisting on us which have started appearing on recent cars.
Motorcyclists are up in arms about it, but the EU doesn't seem to care.
Ah, the high viz vest that lets the wearer get away with murder. Some time back there was a mock-documentary TV programme that had a presenter in a high viz vest standing on a litter-strewn pavement, politely asking various passers-by if they would mind picking up one piece of litter and binning it. The object of the exercise was to record how many people complied without question, how many people complied but questioned his authority, and how many people told him to sod off. If I recall correctly, everyone he approached picked up a piece of litter as requested, and only one or two of those asked him who he was and why he was asking people to pick up litter. My grandparents' generation - heck, even my parents' generation - pre-Nanny - would have given him a right mouthful.
ReplyDeleteI see no problem with 'compensation' in itself - in equity for losses/suffering from reasonable risks undertaken.
ReplyDeleteHowever, too often employers (and their insurers) have resisted payment for 'workplace' claims on the grounds that the claimant breached rules based on Section 7 of the H&S Act 1974 - (Summary from DirectGov website)
//Your most important responsibilities as an employee are: to take reasonable care of your own health and safety // to take reasonable care not to put other people - fellow employees and members of the public - at risk by what you do or don't do in the course of your work // to co-operate with your employer, making sure you get proper training and you understand and follow the company's health and safety policies //
The trick is to figure just WHAT is "reasonable" in the given circumstances! Many years ago I worked for a large Company which wrote into the 'job description' for its First Aiders, fire marshals and Safety managers that they were responsible for ensuring that other staff evacuated and were properly cared for - this meant that we could use our (trained) judgement and were NOT 'required' to leave the building immediately an alarm sounded.
Tonk said:
ReplyDelete"If everyone wears hi-viz vests, no one stands out so the whole purpose of the vests become null and void."
Occasionally I go out with a friend who delivers lorries for a living (gets me out out of the house for a day). Last year we delivered a vehicle to a council depot in London. Everyone was wearing a hi-viz vest except for us. Guess who stuck out like a sore thumb?
Totally in agreement with you Ken on scrapping the elf'n'safetee culcha. As Tonk says, it's another excrescence of the odious culcharul Marxism that infests our local authorities.
ReplyDeleteBut...I really don't see much evidence of this rampaging 'compensation culture'. If there is an upswing in claims then could it be because services are now so abysmal and even abusive that there are simply more people who are injured by them?
On a different tack, I wonder how many who downcry legal action and compensation from negligent services? Obviously those who have never been injured or damaged by our inglorious public services.
Do these naysayers have any idea at all of how difficult it is even to get a lawyer to spend more than 20mins listening to the case? Do they have any idea whatsoever of the massive costs involved in dealing with the fallout of an incident of public service neglect or incompetence?
People don't have to die to have their lives ruined. Just one act of mediocre public service neglect/malpractice can wreck not only the primary service user's life but also the lives of their family members.
Thus, when a case gets as far as a letter of action to the offending body, you can be very sure that a claim is more than valid.
Then, the payout...far from being a 'reward' worth fighting for, it's usually a paltry, derisory sum that most CEOs of public services earn in a month.
So why do people make claims? Not for the money. They make claims because they want apologies. Simple as that.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that IF arrogant, incompetent, wasteful, negligent, lazy, 'public' 'services' staff were to just say 'Sorry' at the earliest point in the process then MOST claims for compensation just would't occur.
I wish folks wouldn't fall into the trap of believing the party line. I can well understand how PI lawyers want to see a reduction in accidents and claims: bringing a case to law is usually the only way our arrogant nanny will even begin to think about her incredibly lacksadaisical treatment of we little people. The 'compensation culture' and its denouncers are like the 'welfare scroungers' denouncers.I wish people would look behind the shock/horror headlines and do the research - there is actually little evidence for either, and actually more evidence for underpaid benefits and those who are injured being neglected.