False Whiplash Claims Wasting Doctors' Time
Valuable time is being taken away from Leeds patients by people exaggerating injuries to claim compensation.
That's according to a new study, which found half of doctors in our region have seen an increase in the number of claims for things like whiplash.
Dr Richard Vautrey is a GP in Meanwood, and Deputy Chair of the British Medical Association.
He thinks the real problem is claims companies encouraging clients to go:
“I haven’t seen patients who I think have been seriously exaggerating their symptoms.
“But what I have seen are patients who have attended because their insurance company or their legal advisor has advised them to attend, and they themselves didn’t believe the symptoms warranted a GP appointment.
“In many cases the patients don’t have that much in the way of serious injury.
“What we need to try and do is to reduce those unnecessary consultations so that people who do need to see their GP, can see their GP when they need to.”
The study found that GPs here spend almost 2 hours per month dealing with these complaints.
Nationally, there are an estimated 116,000 suspect cases a month, which is eating up nearly a million surgery hours each year.
Nearly half of doctors also said they sometimes feel intimidated by patients to agree with their own diagnosis when it’s suspected they’re not telling the truth.
They report that dealing with these types of cases not only takes away valuable appointment time from genuine patients, but that additional surgery hours are lost dealing with the law firms and claims companies pestering them for paperwork.
“We need to sit down with legal teams and insurance companies and see whether there is a way to reduce the unnecessary claims that people are encouraged to make,” says Dr Vautrey.
“I think this is an issue for the government to look at very carefully.”