Insurance Schemes

Abstract

What will be considered here is the network of benefits available to the victims of personal injuries quite apart from the tort system. Reference has already been made to the NHS, its system of funding and who is entitled to use it (see Sect. A. II). In addition to the system of comprehensive medical services, there is the rest of the social security system which provides benefits in cash and supporting social services. Approximately one-third of all public expenditure is spent on all of these benefits combined. Less than 6% of this expenditure goes to the victims of personal injuries, through one benefit or another. The rest is expended on unemployment benefit, state pensions, sickness benefits and so on. The whole scheme of the modern welfare state was established originally in the various Acts of legislation in the 1940s, the National Insurance Act, 1946, the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries)Act, 1946, the National Assistance Act, 1948, the Family Allowances Act, 1945 and the National Health Service Acts, 1946 and 1949. Since then, of course, these Acts have been amended and changed but the framework remains. Perhaps the most significant additions have been the creation of a scheme for the compensation of the victims of criminal injuries, by the creation in 1964 of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, and the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, which makes provision for additional benefits and services for the chronically sick and disabled.