Back injury

Claim compensation following an accident

If you have suffered a back injury in an accident that was not your fault, you may be able to claim personal injury compensation.

A back injury can range from the severe, to minor back sprains and strains. It is very common to experience a back injury and it is estimated that over 85% of UK adults under the age of 50 have at some time in their lives suffered from pain caused as a result of a back injury. A back injury can cause damage to discs, nerves, or muscles resulting in varying levels of discomfort, pain or disability depending on the severity of the injury. The most common types of accident resulting in a back injury include:

• Road traffic accident
  A back injury can result from a car accident or motorcycle accident, and the neck damage following a whiplash injury can include back and shoulder pain.
  
  
• Lifting injury or manual handling injury
  Lifting and manual handling accidents frequently happen at work. Statistics show back injury is the most common type of accident affecting workers in the UK and results in high levels of absenteeism from work. Employers have a duty to care for their employees and must meet minimum standards for health and safety and employee rights. They must provide safe premises, equipment and working practices for their employees and because many manual handling and lifting injuries commonly result from a failure in this duty, many employees may be entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation if they suffer a back injury at work.
  
  
• Slip, trip or fall injury
  A back injury can be caused by a slip, trip or fall accident which may be due to the hazardous condition of pavements, public places, footpaths or roads. If this is the case you may be able to claim for damages against the owners or authorities responsible for maintenance of the building or public place.
  
  
• Sport injury
  Whilst a sport injury is sometimes an unavoidable part of physical sport and often no one can be held responsible or negligent in their actions, there are situations where a person may suffer a back injury or other type of injury whilst playing sport where a legitimate claim for personal injury compensation would be made. For example, an irresponsible tackle by an opponent in a football match, defective playing surfaces or facilities, negligence of training or coaching staff.

The Claim Solicitors are leading UK personal injury solicitors and have won compensation claims for hundreds of people who have suffered a back injury in an accident that was not their fault. Our approach is to provide a friendly and efficient service to make the process of claiming compensation as straightforward as possible.

We can act under a no win, no fee agreement which means that you can pursue your claim knowing that if you lose you will not have to pay us, or your opponent's solicitor's costs. If your claim is successful we recover our legal costs from your opponent's insurance company. In short, there is nothing to lose by pursuing a compensation claim for back injury with The Claim Solicitors personal injury solicitor.

If you have suffered a back injury in an accident that was not your fault and would like to make a claim for personal injury compensation or if you would like to discuss in confidence any matter related to making a compensation claim for a back injury, or other type of injury, please call our claim team on 0800 197 32 32 or complete the claim assessment opposite.

Facts about back injury
In 2003, 40% of adults - more than 16 million people, or two in five, - had back injury pain lasting more than one day. For more than half, 8 million people, the pain lasted more than four weeks, while 2.5 million people suffered back pain every day of the year.

Back injury problems affect all kinds of people, men as much as women and young as well as old. Even among 16-24 year olds, one in three had back pain in the past year. Back injury problems are most common among the middle aged; almost half of those aged 45-64 had back pain in the last year.

Young people are more likely to have brief, acute episodes of back injury pain, while chronic pain is more characteristic of older people. Just over one in four people over the age of 65 suffered back pain for the whole year.

Back injury pain can affect us all:

Back injury costs the country billons - key facts

Back injury pain is the nation's leading cause of disability, with 1.1 million people disabled by it. In 1997.8, over 119 million days a year were lost due to registered disability caused by back problems. This figure includes only people who claimed benefits as a result of their bad backs, so the total estimate, including short spells, could be nearer 180 million lost working days. One in eight (13%) unemployed people say that back pain is the reason they are not working.

On average, each person with back injury pain and related conditions takes 13 days off work.

The most recent information available suggests that the NHS currently spends about £480 million a year on services used by people with a back injury. This includes about 14 million GP consultations, seven million physical therapy sessions and 800,000 in-patient bed-days.

Back injury problems cost the nation about £6 billion a year, almost two thirds of it is due to time lost from work. A typical GP practice with 5 GPs and 10,000 patients spends an average of £88,000 a year on patients with back pain.

Cost of back injury problems to the economy

Who is at risk from back injury?

Back injury pain is spread fairly evenly across the community in terms of age, sex and geography, but occupation makes a difference, over 1 million people have work-related back pain or upper limb disorders. Manual workers are, not surprisingly, more likely to have back problems than white-collar workers since their work is more likely to involve heavy lifting. 10% of all employee major injuries take place while handling, lifting or carrying.

You are more likely to suffer a serious back injury at work (involving a fracture or hospital admission for more than 24 hours) if you work in:

• Agriculture
  
  
• Construction
  
  
• Mining
  
  
• Transport and communications

You are most likely to sprain or strain your back so that you have to take more than three days off work if you work in:

• The postal or telecommunications business
  
  
• Transport support services
  
  
• Food, drink or tobacco manufacturing
  
  
• The water supply industry

Some occupations can cause back problems without involving back injury.

Among these are:

• Driving a motor vehicle. A recent study found that people driving over 25,000 miles a year averaged just over 22 days a year off work with a bad back, compared with just over 3 days for low mileage drivers 12
  
  
• Driving a train. Train drivers are twice as likely as
  HGV drivers to report back pain
  
  
• Work involving intensive use of the telephone without headsets. A survey of London office workers showed that half of office workers who use a telephone for at least two hours a day and also use a computer report neck pain and 31% lower back pain
  
  
• Being a supermarket cashier - 57% experience
• lower back pain in a year.

Treatment for back injury
Based on an extensive review of the research into the effectiveness of different treatments for back injury pain, the treatment currently recommended for an acute attack of low back pain which has no danger signs is:

• Painkillers
  
  
• Continuing with normal activities
  
  
• Returning to work as soon as possible
  
  
• Bed rest is not recommended - it actually makes
• things worse and should be avoided.

Despite this, GPs are still recommending bed rest to one in four of the people who consult them about back pain. The longer someone is off work with back pain, the lower the chances of their returning to work. Patients who return to normal activities feel healthier, take fewer painkillers and are less distressed than those who limit their activities

In two out of three cases, back pain clears up spontaneously and quickly - in less than a month - but for an unfortunate minority, it becomes chronic. Chronic back pain is often associated with psychological or social factors - in fact these are more important risk factors for developing chronic pain than physical symptoms and signs. For this reason, purely physical treatment has a low success rate with chronic back pain sufferers.

Other factors associated with chronic back pain are:

• Smoking
  
  
• Heart disease
  
  
• Depression
  
  
• Poor working conditions

Although more than 16 million people will suffer from back pain in the course of a year, fewer than half will consult their GP. About one in ten will receive hospital outpatient treatment, one in 165 will undergo inpatient treatment and only one in just under 700 will need surgery.

We can help you following a back injury
If you have suffered a back injury in an accident that was not your fault and you would like to discuss making a claim for back injury compensation, please call our claim team on 0800 197 32 32, or complete the claim assessment opposite and we will call you back.