A report by the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum (UKABIF) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Acquired Brain Injury (APPG for ABI) is calling for people who have suffered an acquired brain injury (ABI) to have a statutory ‘Right to Rehab’. The ‘Right to Rehab’ report sets out an estimate of the enormous cost of brain injury to those who are injured, their families and carers, and to the wider healthcare, social, educational and economic systems, and says that much of the cost of ABI could be avoided by timely, clinical specialist-led neurorehabilitation. For those entitled to compensation after a road crash, workplace or other negligently-caused head injury, specialist brain injury solicitors can use the Rehabilitation Code to secure early, personalised, funded, neurorehabilitation for the injured person via a personal injury claim. Timely, specialist rehabilitation maximises the head-injured person’s recovery, restores their mobility and independence, and enhances their quality of life and ability to participate (to the degree that they are able) in the activities that matter to them. However, for those without cause for a claim, access to rehabilitation is a postcode lottery, compounded by lack of resources or medical, social and societal misunderstanding, and many people with acquired (ABI) or traumatic (TBI) brain injury receive no rehabilitation or meaningful support beyond the acute (trauma) hospital treatment of their injury. This leaves many unable or disadvantaged in their ability to learn, work, live independently or maintain their financial security, whilst others fall prey to mental health crises, social deprivation, homelessness or crime and prison. What is ABI? Acquired Brain Injury or ABI refers to any injury to the brain which has occurred since birth, including brain injury from tumours, infections, stroke, inflammation (such as meningitis), hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), and traumatic brain injuries (TBI) from blows to the head from road collisions, falls, workplace injuries, sports injuries or assault. ABI or TBI can range from minor injury lasting only a few days (e.g. mild concussion) to severe injury with profound, lifelong disability. Most people who need acute hospital treatment for ABI also need further rehabilitation or therapies to help them make their best recovery, but many are discharged after acute (trauma) treatment without any long term support or rehabilitation. Acquired brain injury (ABI) statistics from the ‘Right to Rehab’ report According to UKABIF and the APPG for ABI’s ‘Right to Rehab’ report, 335,000 people attend hospital for ABI in the UK each year. Of these, 124,000 have TBI, 144,000 have strokes, 43,000 have brain tumours, and the remaining 25,000 have a wide range of conditions including meningitis (7,000), encephalitis, oxygen deprivation and carbon monoxide poisoning. More men than women have TBI until their later years, when women suffer more strokes, and both have more falls. Children are more likely to suffer head injuries between birth and four years old, and in adolescence. More boys suffer ABI than girls. ABI is the leading cause of death and disability for people under the age of 40 in the UK. The ‘Right to Rehab’ report says that in 2023/24, ABI cost the UK economy £43billion. Included within this figure was £20bn of NHS and social care, including emergency, diagnostic and therapeutic care and support services for TBI, stroke and brain tumours. Also included was £21.5bn of lost productivity by people with ABI and their unpaid carers (including £1.9bn in DWP benefits). In addition, the annual cost included £1.5bn of cost to the Criminal Justice System, and £0.93bn in special educational needs (SEN) support, based on an estimated average cost of £6,700pa per child with ABI. Alongside the £43bn economic cost, the report estimates the ‘wellbeing costs’ associated with ABI at £91.5bn (calculated as a monetised representation of the significant, and often unrecognised, human costs of ABI, rather than a cash sum). This estimates the human cost from diagnosis through treatment and life with disability, and/or early death. These figures attempt to show the scale of the impact of ABI for the brain-injured individuals who can no longer work or function as they used to, as well as the wider psychological effect on their partners, children, parents and unpaid carers, who suffer a range of effects including isolation and loneliness, financial hardship, and mental, psychological and physical ill health. Despite the alarming figures, the report says that the cost estimates are conservative, and don’t take into account the ABI-associated costs of homelessness, addiction services, mental health services and psychiatric stays. What recommendations are made in the ‘Right to Rehab’ report? UKABIF and the APPG for ABI’s ‘Right to Rehab’ report asserts that much of the current economic and wellbeing cost of ABI could be prevented by the government investing in a statutory right to rehabilitation for acquired brain injury. The report doesn’t specify what should be included as standard in the proposed rehabilitation programme, but makes clear that the brain-injured patient would receive clinical specialist-led neurorehabilitation. In our experience, this should involve a case manager’s immediate needs assessment (INA) followed by a personalised, professionally coordinated, multidisciplinary (MDT) programme of specialist treatment. The report assumes an average cost for the rehabilitation at over £43,000 per patient, leading to potential savings in other costs of around £680,000 per patient. Whilst UKABIF acknowledge that providing statutory rehabilitation for everyone who suffers a head or brain injury would come with a cost, they look to build on the success of existing models, such as the Ministry of Defence’s rehabilitation programme, which achieves faster recovery times for brain-injured military personnel, and to the anticipated opening of the National Centre for Rehabilitation (NRC), which aims to treat 800 acute patients at a cost of £100m. They argue that in addition to improving outcomes for people with ABI, statutory rehabilitation would go a long way towards reducing long-term costs within the NHS, social services and local authorities, as well as increasing workforce participation and benefiting communities and the entire economy. Seven years ago, the APPG for ABI and UKABIF published their report, Acquired Brain Injury and Neurorehabilitation: Time for Change, in which they recommended early access to specialist and/or community neurorehabilitation as critical components of the ABI care pathway. That need has still not been met across the UK, and the campaigners now call on government to address the rehabilitation needs of people with ABI, urgently. Rehabilitation in head injury personal injury claims The Rehabilitation Code makes clear that where someone suffers an injury in circumstances that give rise to a claim, good practice mandates that personal injury lawyers and insurers alike should prioritise the injured person’s rehabilitation. The personal and potentially cost-saving benefit of timely multidisciplinary, specialist rehabilitation for ABI is recognised and almost universally supported in personal injury claims, but often does not receive the same recognition or prioritisation in a brain-injured patient’s post-traumatic medical treatment or social care. Our head injury specialists are committed to helping injury victims secure the rehabilitation that they need to maximise their recovery and restore their independence. Too often, this involves helping desperate families secure rehabilitation for a severely-injured patient who has simply been discharged after NHS acute trauma treatment, or rescuing the injured person from unsafe care or living conditions. Timely, coordinated, personalised rehabilitation is essential for meaningful recovery after head injury, but still remains inaccessible for those without cause for a claim or the support of specialist solicitors with experience in brain injury rehabilitation. We support UKABIF’s call for a statutory ‘Right to Rehab’ for all who suffer acquired (ABI) and traumatic (TBI) brain injury so that, however their injury occurred, they too can receive, as standard, specialist rehabilitation. If you or a family member have suffered a brain injury as a result of someone else's negligence and you would like to find out more about funded rehabilitation or making a claim for compensation, you can talk to one of our experienced solicitors, free and confidentially, by contacting us.
