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Further Postponement of NHS Injury Costs Recovery Scheme

  • Last modified date:
    8 February 2007

Part 3 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 makes provision for the establishment of a scheme to recover the costs of providing treatment to an injured person, where that person has made a successful personal injury compensation claim against a third party.

The person or organisation paying the compensation must also pay NHS Injury Costs Recovery (ICR) charges. This builds on the existing Road Traffic Act (RTA) scheme, which allows costs to be recovered in road traffic accident cases only.

In the autumn of 2004, a public consultation was undertaken which set out in detail the draft Regulations that would govern the new scheme.

One of the key messages to come out of that consultation was that there was a need to further widen the scope for contributory negligence to be taken into account, so that a wide range of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms can be used, rather than just mediation or court based processes. This was achieved through the inclusion of an amending clause in the Health Bill which has just completed its passage through Parliament. During June 2006, however, there was a very real possibility that pressure of Parliamentary business might result in the Health Bill not receiving Royal Assent until after the Summer Recess. Had that been the case, it would not have been possible to implement the ICR Scheme in its entirety from 30 October as planned because there would be insufficient time for the Parliamentary processes associated with the laying of regulations to be completed. The decision was therefore taken to postpone implementation to 29 January 2007. As it happens, the Health Bill was able to complete its passage and received Royal assent before the Recess. However, the revised implementation date will stand.

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