Health & Case Management Ltd (HCML) and a group of eminent professors and clinicians have called for a new consensus in tackling the ‘Whiplash Culture’ and treatment in the UK, calling on the industry to agree on how diagnosis, claims and treatment could be changed and asking is there a better way?
Led by Dr Nick Kendall, the group have announced the details of a conference (2nd Nov hosted at the Kings Fund in London) which they believe will produce a consensus document, to be presented to the government and insurance industry, that will help stop the whiplash culture in the UK, and they call for techniques already used in other countries to be considered and adopted in the UK and stop the UK becoming the ‘Whiplash’ capital of the world.
Dr Nick Kendall, one of the worlds leading experts in the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injury’s in announcing the one day seminar said, “There is an urgent need to re-examine commonly held assumptions about whiplash from diagnosis, to treatment and ask the industry, is there a better way? The UK needs to learn from experiences in other countries and this conference will produce a position statement and recommendations for three main areas that we believe the government and insurance industry should adopt. We are going to examine three main areas:
DIAGNOSIS BASED ON THE BONE AND JOINT DECADE TASK FORCE ON NECK PAIN AND ITS ASSOCIATED DISORDERS – does the conference support this recommendation?
- To what extent is whiplash a medical problem? Has it been allowed to become one? Is it always ‘whiplash’?
CLAIMS AND ATTRIBUTION – does the conference agree there are limitations to the current medico legal and biomedical assessment of whiplash?
- Why have claims increased despite enhanced safety? What factors contribute to claims being initiated?
- Should all claims be managed in the same way?
TACKLING THE PROBLEM (TREATMENT/REHABILITATION) – does the conference support the Initial Medical Assessment (IMA) Professional Case Management approach using active rehab? By whom and when?
- Can whiplash be prevented or made less severe? Should everyone receive the same types of treatments? Can these be selected for the grade of whiplash, and delivered in an efficient and stepped manner?
Whiplash has become a significant problem in the UK with nearly 1200 new cases every day, despite improved road and vehicle safety and fewer slight injuries reported by the police. This has led to considerable debate about what is going on in three main areas: injury prevention; the claim process (insurance, and legal); and medical management (diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation). Clearly none has tackled the problem effectively to date, alone or in combination.
The purpose of this forum will be to re-examine these major areas and to identify more effective ways of dealing with any type of neck pain associated with a road traffic accident”.
Keith Bushnell, CEO of HCML added, “Interdisciplinary dialogue about the multi-faceted whiplash problem between biomechanical researchers, physicians, technical experts, lawyers, insurers, car manufacturers and the government is the basis for effective solutions. This is an excellent opportunity for the industry to take part in the formulation of key new approaches, led by a group of experts.”
Medico-Legal News Source: Claims Standards Council
