Pleural plaques payouts win for bereaved

Pleural plaques payouts win for bereaved

Asbestos campaigners have welcomed a policy shift that means families of some diseased pleural victims will receive compensation. The government move means next of kin will now receive £5,000 as long as an application for compensation was submitted before the death of the pleural plaques sufferer. The previous government was accused of 'abandoning' victims after it announced last year it would not change a 2007 Law Lords ruling that prevents sufferers of pleural plaques - a scarring of the lungs caused by exposure to asbestos - from claiming compensation (Risks 445). But people who had already started a legal claim for compensation have until August this year to apply for a £5,000 one-off payment (Risks 468). This scheme has now been extended to include eligible sufferers who died before a claim was processed. Northern TUC regional secretary Kevin Rowan, said: 'It has taken some considerable time and much struggle for pleural plaques victims to persuade government to introduce a compensation scheme for illnesses that have clearly been entirely as a result of their exposure to asbestos, entirely down to their employers' negligence. For the families of those victims to have been denied those compensation payments where the victim has died before the payment was issued was a clear and insulting injustice.'

TUC news release. MoJ advice and details of the scheme. Northern Echo.