Who are our Clients?
Our Clients
Our Clients have acquired neurological damage resulting in brain or spinal cord injury of a serious nature and have been compensated in order that they may live an independent life as near to the life they would have lived had they not been injured.
The nature of brain and spinal cord injuries means our clients have wide and varied needs including physical disability and cognitive impairment, ranging from mild to complex. Most of our clients have lifelong care and support needs including complex health care.
In addition to brain or spinal injury, our clients often have other underlying, organic or secondary conditions such as sensory impairment, mental health difficulties, drug or alcohol addiction, dementia.
Sufferers of brain injury, who have compensation claims, will have built into their financial awards sums of money for ongoing care, case management and therapies. These sums are applied towards the purchase of care both from family and employed carers, and towards case management services to ensure that the package is safe and meets the intended outcomes for the individual.
During a claim for compensation and afterwards a Court of Protection appointed Property and Financial Affairs Deputy is responsible for administration of the money in the best interests of the Client. This often involves appointing a case manager and implementing a care regime therefore it is often the Client’s solicitor who will appoint us early in the case. Where a case manager is responsible for the ongoing direction and control of a regulated activity, for example personal care, they must be registered with and regulated by the Care Quality Commission. https://www.cqc.org.uk/
Age Groups
Injuries may be sustained at birth or at any stage of life. We work with people of all ages including:
- Children and Young People (0-18)
- Adults (18-65)
- Older Adults (65+)
Acquired Brain Injury
Acquired brain injury (ABI) may be defined as an injury to the brain that has occurred since birth. There are many possible causes, including road traffic accidents, assaults, falls and accidents at home or at work.
The term “acquired brain injury” includes traumatic brain injuries such as open or closed head injuries and non-traumatic brain injuries such as those caused by strokes and other vascular accidents, tumours, infectious diseases, hypoxic metabolic disorders and toxic products taken into the body through inhalation or ingestion. The term does not include brain injuries that are congenital or produced by birth trauma.
ABI Statistics
The NICE Head Injury briefing reports that “head injury is the commonest cause of death and disability in people aged 1-40 years in the UK. Each year, 1.4 million people attend emergency departments in England and Wales with a recent head injury. Between 33% and 50% of these are children aged under 15 years. Annually, about 200,000 people are admitted to hospital with head injury. Of these, one-fifth have features suggesting skull fracture or have evidence of brain damage. The incidence of death from head injury is low, with as few as 0.2% of all patients attending emergency departments with a head injury dying as a result”.
Using hospital admissions statistics, Headway compiled the first dataset on all ABI-related hospital admissions in the UK with statistics taken from 2016-2017. These included non-superficial head injuries, strokes, brain tumours, encephalitis, and a variety of additional conditions.
This is the first time a picture of incidence rates for all ABI in the UK has been published, with the figures highlighting a concerning growth in the number of people sustaining injuries to the brain each year.
Some Key Facts
Headway reports:
- There were 348,453 UK admissions to hospital with acquired brain injury in 2016-17. That is 531 admissions per 100,000 of the population.
- ABI admissions in the UK have increased by 10% since 2005-6.
- There were approximately 954 ABI admissions per day to UK hospitals in 2016-17 – or one every 90 seconds.
- In 2016-17, there were 155,919 admissions for head injury. That equates to 427 every day, or one every three minutes.
- Men are 1.5 times more likely than women to be admitted for head injury. However, female head injury admissions have risen 23% since 2005-6.
- In 2016-17, there were 132,199 admissions for stroke. That is an increase of 10% since 2005-6 and equates to one every four minutes.
The North of England have the highest rates of ABI in the UK with figures ranging from 243 per 100,000 in Scotland to 621 per 100,000 in the North East and 623 per 100,000 in the North West of England.
https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/further-information/statistics/