Payment of NHS charges

The notion that the healthcare costs of a victim of negligence should be contributed to by the person responsible for inflicting the injuries, or at least his liability insurers, dates back to the Road Traffic Act 1930. In road traffic cases the compulsory policy obtained by the road user had to cover modest sums for the healthcare of any person injured by him, consisting of both hospital treatment and also emergency treatment at the scene, provisions which are now enacted as ss157 and 158 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. In recent years the concept has been extended. By the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Act 1997 the Government introduced a scheme under which the wrongdoer and his liability insurers (including the Motor Insurers Bureau where no insurers existed) faced liability to indemnify the Secretary of State for the amount of social security benefits payable to the victim as a result of the injury, the effect of the legislation being to deem liability policies to cover the assured’s liability to provide that indemnity. The scheme is administered by the Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU). The 1997 Act was a model for the Road Traffic (NHS Charges) Act 1999, which required road users to pay the costs of NHS hospital treatment (the Road Traffic Act 1988 continuing to apply to private hospitals and emergency treatment at the scene) and which also deemed such liability to fall within the scope of compulsory motor policies. In effect, therefore, liability insurers were required to indemnify the Government for NHS costs in motor insurance cases. Part 3 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 provided for the extension of the motor insurance scheme to all forms of liability for personal injury. Part 3 of the 2003 Act lay dormant for over three years, but it has now been triggered. As a result, liability insurers face the prospect of having to pay additional sums by way of indemnification.