The importance of support throughout the life of a claim

At Anthony Gold, we act for clients who sustain serious and complex injuries.  This means the long-term outcome is often not known for a number of years and claims can take several years to conclude.

But that does not mean we do not do anything in those intervening years.  The result for clients is a financial settlement, but that can only be achieved when our clients have either fully recovered or optimised their recovery.   Rehabilitation is vital to our clients and consequently, where we can, during the lifetime of their claims we ensure they are supported with comprehensive rehabilitation packages bespoke to them to maximise their recovery, as well as securing interim payments to support them financially if their injuries mean that they are unable to work as they did before the accident.

By way of an example, I recently acted for Ms B, a young woman who in 2021 suffered multiple injuries to both lower limbs as a result of a head-on collision with another driver.  The other driver, travelling in the opposite direction on a country road, had attempted to overtake another vehicle and hit my client’s vehicle head on.  Tragically, he died at the scene.

My client worked in physically demanding job in the equine polo industry. She suffered serious bilateral lower limb injuries and required multiple surgeries.  Unfortunately, despite the surgeries, she suffered delayed union of a right femur fracture and, over the course of the next three years, underwent further multiple non-union surgeries.  Her fracture finally united three years after the accident but during this period she was unable to return to any form of work.

Liability for the accident was not disputed.  I was successful in obtaining an early interim payment from the driver’s insurers and able to secure rehabilitation support under the Rehabilitation Code.

It was not possible to settle the claim for my client because the medical experts instructed in the claim could not give the opinion needed on her longer-term outcome whilst she continued to have problems from the non-union of her fractures.  However, during this period, I secured further interim payments of approximately £100,000 which went some way to alleviating my client’s financial worries.  She was not being paid during her time absent from work. I also secured extensive ongoing rehabilitation under the Rehabilitation Code.  This meant my client had access to maximum support during her recovery, including home adaptation, allowing her to continue to live on her farm.  Her comprehensive rehabilitation programme included physiotherapy, osteopathy, Pilates, pain management, counselling and complementary therapies.

Ultimately, my client, a French national, decided to return to France to access support from her family.  Whilst funding was available for professional assistance with her own care and childcare, she did not wish to bring professionals into her home and preferred to access that support from family members.

When settled in France, with the assistance of her rehabilitation case manager, she was able to set up a similar system of rehabilitation to that which she had had in the UK.  She also enrolled on a three-month vocational course designed to identify suitable job roles and to support her in a return to work in her chosen area.  At the conclusion of her case, my client had recently started studying to pursue a career in HR. She has also identified a horse-riding facility that supported disabled riders and is hoping to be able to return to her passion at a social level.

Now almost 4 years post-accident, whilst my client had made a reasonable recovery from her injuries, and whilst the severity of them means she will always have functional limitations, the rehabilitation I was able to secure for her has meant her recovery was optimised.  It also meant that the experts in the case could provide a final prognosis, enabling me to secure a financial settlement for her at a level which will support her in her ongoing needs in her new life on a long-term basis.