Last week in the news (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11083236), it has been reported that written complaints against the NHS has seen the biggest annual rise ever seen since records began 12 years ago.

Over 100,000 complaints were made in 2009/2010 and this was a 13.4% increase on the complaints made in the previous year.

On average, the annual increase in complaints per year from 1997/1998 has been 1.1%; so the rise seen this year is drastic.
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It’s a wet day today at The Injury Lawyers camp – the rain has been coming down quite hard over the weekend and today, and the roads are wet and pose a possible hazard. We should all take extra care on wet roads; rather obviously, we must ensure to keep a greater distance between vehicles, keep speed to a sensible minimum, and keep an extra eye out with the rainwater clogging up our windscreens.  But even without the rain, accidents are still so easy to be involved in – and they are all too common.

In fact, just last Friday I managed to dodge a road accident on my way home from work. Whilst driving down a residential road, another vehicle clearly had not looked in to my road before emerging from a side road, and ended up pulling right out in front of me. It was certainly a nerve-racking experience; the car-lined residential street was in no way capable of allowing two vehicles to pass next to each other.

 A head on collision was marginally avoided as I managed to swerve to evade the offending vehicle, narrowly (and I mean, narrowly – there were millimetres in it!) missing a circular metal barrier for a pathway tree on the side of the road. In fact, the barrier itself had already been bent inwards and was pressing against the tree. Clearly someone has already hit it sometime before me – which turned out to work in my favour. Had the barrier been fully extended, I would certainly have hit it! A bit of a miracle it may seem (although I hope whichever poor sole hit it before me wasn’t too badly hurt).
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In recent news, it has been reported that a taxi driver reached speeds of 100mph in freezing conditions whilst he had passengers in his vehicle.

Neil Colquhoun told his two passengers, Victoria and Louise Guthrie to “shut up” when they asked him to slow down, as he raced along at dangerous speeds. Mr Colquhoun reached speeds of up to 70mph in built up areas that have a speed limit of 30mph. He then went on to overtake another vehicle on a blind bend. The two sisters were left feeling very “shaken” and to make matters worse, they recently lost their brother in a motorbike crash.

The sisters must have been terrified by the speeds that Mr. Colquhoun reached as he sped past the scene of one of Scotland’s worst road accidents. As they left Perth, Mr. Colquhoun overtook the vehicle on the blind bend and then went on to reach speeds of 100mph on the Burnbrae Straight near Methven where five people died in 2007 in a road accident. The sisters told Perth Sheriff Court that they watched the speedometer as Mr. Colquhoun continued to drive at speeds of 70mph as he drove through the village of Methven.
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We are all aware that there is a lot of controversy around in today’s society about what ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ be done and I have to say that on occasions I read some shockers and today was no exception.

Whilst browsing the Daily Mail’s website this morning I came across an article regarding the theft of 3 ‘high powered’ motorbikes from a store in Altrincham, Manchester. The robbers raided the store and fled at high speeds on the stolen bikes.

Accordingly, the store owner had called for police assistance only to be astonished when the officers in attendance were ordered not to give chase as the criminals were not wearing any safety equipment! The store owner had to literally stand by and watch the bikes be driven off into the distance with nobody able to do anything about it.
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I recently wrote a blog about the Daniel Ubani case. He was the German surgeon who came over to the UK to do a GP out of hours shift and ended up killing a patient by prescribing a huge amount of the drug diamorphine. This was a very sad case, but it was hoped that the media prominence of the events would ensure that reforms were brought in and that this tragedy was never repeated.

However, on the 12^th of August, the Guardian newspaper published figures from the NHS that they had obtained under a Freedom of Information request. These are extremely disturbing. They noted that, in less than a year, health workers made 1,300 errors related to opiate analgesics. These resulted in 2 patients suffering “severe” harm and 3 patients actually dying.

In addition, the report revealed that two other GPs working for the same company as Dr Ubani , the ironically named ‘Take Care Now’, had also been involved in errors related to diamorphine prescribing. Fortunately, these events were not fatal.
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Just the other day I authored an article on speeding and its dangers. And I will be covering the same topic again after reading this heartbreaking story of a young boy killed by a reckless, speeding driver.

According to the Daily Mail (source), a 12 year old boy who beat leukaemia and lived with several disabilities was tragically knocked down by a speeding driver doing almost twice the limit, as he was crossing the road on his bicycle. Steven Atkinson was reportedly born with a cleft palate and curvature of the spine, as well as being deaf in one ear and having an immobile eye. After a 3 year battle, this brave young boy beat leukaemia.
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Road Traffic accidents are on the increase. Sky News reports that Man Utd’s midfielder Anderson was actually pulled out of his fabulous Audi R8, unconscious, just moments before the burning car exploded!

Amazingly the football star only had minor injuries after his near death crash experience on the rural roads of Geres in Portugal.

Anderson signed a £18million contract three years ago with the popular Man Utd Team. The Brazilian born player spent the night in Sardinha Biba night club before he left in his Audi worth an estimated £125,000.
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I have to say that when I first read the news of this article on the Sky News Website I was actually appalled. Sky news reports that the government are slashing Road Accident expenses by 40%, so they may switch off thousands of speed cameras throughout England. Considering that the accident rates are constantly increasing due to drivers driving at speeds far too fast for the road, how is switching off these preventative measures going to help anyone!?

It has been estimated that 6,000 speed cameras across the UK cost motorists £100million in fines each year. So surely knowing this alone should stop them from turning the cameras off. Surely if there are this many felons now who are speeding, knowing that they are at risk of incurring 3 points and a minimum of a £60 fine, just imagine how many people are going to drive recklessly once the cameras are turned off. If people are already speeding knowing that there are these fines and cameras in place, what in the world is going to stop them from speeding if there is no punishment or fine in place at all!?
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A very sad case has been recently exposed by Channel 4 News (source).

Baby Lucus, seven and a half months old, suffered from a neurological disorder called Sturge-Weber, a rare but treatable condition which causes regular convulsions in young children. He was admitted into the Homerton Hospital in East London for treatment following a number of fits. He was under the care of three experienced doctors: a paediatrician consultant, a senior registrar, and a senior house officer. Despite this, Baby Lucus was administered with between 9 and 12 times the recommended dose for a child of his age and weight of an anti-epileptic drug.

The anti-epileptic drug called Phenytoin has the effect of slowing down the heart rate and reducing blood pressure, and once administered, there is no way for the drugs’ effects to be reversed. This meant that, even though the doctors seemed to realise quickly that they had provided an overdose, they were unable to do anything about it. Baby Lucus’ parents report a lengthy silence after the drugs had been administered and then the parents were quickly informed of the mistake. Ms Holzscheiter, Lucus’ mother, recalls that one of the doctors was crying as they came into their room to give them the sad news. Baby Lucus sadly died shortly after the drugs were administered.   
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Britain’s roads are busy, and our skies are polluted – it’s an overwhelming argument in favour of greener, leaner transport. The government in recent years has done a fair bit to try and inspire this, with cycling lanes and toll roads. But the issue remains that motorists and cyclists have never quite seen eye to eye…

Let’s face it; motorists are wound up by slow cyclists, often leaving them impatient and careless. In the absence of taking the right amount of due care and attention, an accident with a cyclist is a common occurrence. But cyclists can help themselves – and many cyclists do. There is legislation in place to improve the safety of cyclists on our roads. It’s good to see public figures as advocates of such safety; but it’s bizarre to see it go hypocritically wrong:
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