Son needs an operation following camp, is there negligence

[Cubic]

My son went on an organised camp with a well known youth organisation. He fell playing a game and has dislocated his shoulder. It has since dislocated again and the consultant says he now needs an operation to strengthen the joint and hopefully stop it dislocating in the future.

Mil has suggested we look into a personal injury claim but I'm not sure there is any negligence on the part of the camp, it was an accident. She's raised the point that it could cause problems in different areas of his life etc

Has anyone any experience of something similar or know if it would be classed as negligence? Surely accidents are just accidents sometimes?

The nhs is on it's knee's with long waits. If the op is performed when expected it will clash with exams. Meanwhile my son is in pain.

You really think that if their insurance covers this I should say "no, it's OK, he'll wait, the nhs will pay for it?".

A legitimate insurance claim for a mishap is a very different thing from a spurious litigation suit!
Activities very risk, insurance policies cover those risks, claims may happen to help in the event of problems arising, blame is nothing to do with it.

Crack on op

Carry risk, not very risk.

You are effectively suing somebody when making a claim. You may not end up in court but you are pursuing a claim.

I'm at a loss as to how else I can explain it. Your son is not going to be insured under their policy of insurance. To get them to pay for an operation, they will have to refer your claim to their insurers and whilst you might not commence legal proceedings, you will be claiming against them by asserting some wrongdoing. You will have to prove what that wrongdoing is.

Not necessarily. Insurance policies vary. Some cover accidents and you don't have to show any wrong doing.

Very unlikely for a third party though. If you can point me in the direction of one, I'd be keen to see it. (And I'm not being facetious).

We found this for the scouts when looking:-

https://www.unityinsuranceservices.co.uk/scout-insurance/accident-medical-insurance

He was not hurt at a scout camp, it's just an example we found. No experience of this and like I said until this thread this hadn't occurred to me and I don't even know yet if the organisation has something like this.

Yes so all of those individual scouts are effectively policyholders so all covered.

Maybe they will have something like this.

That's what I'm hoping.

Not that unusual for schools and youth groups.

I think before you look at whether the organisation can pay, first you need to ascertain whether they should pay. The likely outcome if the answer is "yes they should" is that they will make a claim on their insurance. The likely outcome if the answer is "no" and you pursue it anyway will be a bill for their costs (although there is a degree of protection against paying costs for people making personal injury claims, you should make reasonable enquiries first).

The questions you need to answer are things like:

1. Would a reasonable youth leader have organised that activity?
2. Is such an activity normally safe, or was the accident reasonably foreseeable?
3. Was the organisation following its health and safety procedures?
4. Has your son aggravated the injury in any way (e.g. by not resting it enough)?

Essentially what you need to be able to show is that "but for" the negligence of the organisation, your son would not need the operation. Possible reasons why they would not be liable include if, for example, your son chose to carry a heavy rucksack after the injury and made it much worse. Or if it was a freak accident that was not reasonably foreseeable, in which case they did not breach their duty of care?

@FSTraining the insurance detailed above is for accidents. This is non fault and is what the insurance is set up for. It is irrespective of whether their is fault. It is insurance for personal injury. So yes, if he is insured we should claim. It isn't about fault, it's about whether he is injured whilst insured.

Again, the conversation isn't about negligence at this point. It's about insurance. I do not intend to sue.

You need to speak to a solicitor specialising in personal injury. They can discuss whether the circumstances were negligent and often work on no win no fee basis.

Then you misunderstand me. The organisation cannot claim on their insurance if they are not at fault. Typically in these cases, if you proceed to sue, it's because the insurer won't pay out. So you need the organisation to accept fault in order to make a claim on their insurance.

Please look at the link from earlier regarding the scouts.

Before anyone posts without reading thescouts wasn't involved, it is an example

We're now taking the American approach
" where there's a blame, there's a claim"
If he was playing on a grassed area, its simply an accident
If for example, there was no risk assessment done and he fell 20ft off a wall then perhaps it would be negligent!!
It's possible that your son has a shallow shoulder socket which can be prone to dislocation but this would be obvious on an x Ray

You would need to see the insurance policy used by the youth organisation to see whether the activity is covered. However, fault is still relevant. The insurer might not pay out if the organisation was negligent for example.

@FSTraining if the insurer say this surely they would need to demonstrate it in some way, that being the case if they were negligent we'd have to look at that separately.

Sorry, I don't want to make this more confusing than it needs to be. Essentially, I would suggest you have a clear idea of what happened just in case the insurer doesn't pay out. But hopefully the youth organisation will let you make a claim and will detail with any quibbling about fault themselves.

It is pretty unlikely that there will be a non fault accident policy that you don't know about.

Most of the time you need to establish negligence or statutory breach

You can pretend all you like but you're still being an arsehole for trying to sue for an accident.

This is not America.

Is this paid for by the scout group, the family or ??? I know that if I travel, I pay for travel insurance, the airport, pilot, flight attendants airplane manufacturers, etc. aren't responsible for my travel insurance.
Maybe camps should offer private insurance for the attendees to buy that would cover them while at camp.

I presume this was a school camp?