TIme to go back to the drawing board to avoid injuries

Industry news roundup: week ended 27 May 2013:

This week, the big news was that not just one but two major organisations have retreated back to the drawing board to avoid further expensive injury claims.

First, the British racecourse industry is more or less in a shambles after a massive personal injury compensation claim was awarded to a jockey that injured himself so badly after falling at Cheltenham that he was placed into an induced coma in order to facilitate his recovery. Philip Hide ended up walking away with some £58,000 in damages after fracturing his pelvis and suffering a very serious head injury after the court of appeal reversed an earlier decision and made the ruling that Jockey Club Racecourses was responsible for his safety at the time of the incident.

The decision, which sets a precedent for the racecourse industry in that now jockeys and others involved need to be watched much more closely and given better overall safety care than they have been receiving. Now everyone’s running about trying their best to institute reforms in the industry in order to avoid incredibly large payouts in the future such as the one Mr Hide received; it’s a bit disheartening to think that all it took was the threat of personal injury lawyers crawling down their throats to change things and not genuine care for the people under their care, but loss of profit is one powerful motivator isn’t it?

Meanwhile, NHS wards in Scotland are in even worse shape as a recent report has revealed that some 100,000 have suffered injuries in hospitals north of the border since 2009. The list of injuries is quite diverse, as you’ve got your minor cuts and scrapes, your more serious injuries such as broken or lost limbs; in some cases these accidents even led to deaths!

It’s mostly patients that suffer these injuries, the report revealed. However plenty of visitors, student nurses, and staff suffer injuries as well – in fact all told some 64 people suffer injuries every day when you run the maths – and that’s absolutely mad if you ask me.

I’ve been saying it for years – hospitals are no place for a sick person – but now the Scotland Patients Association, which has been driven to distraction by these new figures, have come out and agreed with me. The chairwoman of the healthcare watchdog, Margaret Watt, said that you shouldn’t end up getting more sick or injured after being admitted to hospital. Ms Watt made the suggestion that Scottish hospitals need to follow the example set by construction sites and their extreme focus on keeping their work sites as safe as humanly possible.

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