E-scooter Injuries ‘Costing NHS £1k per Patient’ in Bristol

According to recent reports, e-scooter injuries are costing the NHS an average of £1k per patient in Bristol.

The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (Pacts) has been investigating e-scooter safety across the UK.

Under current UK law, privately-owned e-scooters, of which Pacts estimates there are 500,000 in the UK, are classed as motor vehicles and are illegal to use on roads or in public places without insurance and registration.

But in 2020 the government authorised official trial rental schemes of e-scooters and some 50 local authorities have introduced them.

Pacts estimates private companies have distributed about 20,000 of them across the UK. This is including cities such as London, Nottingham, Derby, Portsmouth, Oxford, Cambridge, Coventry, Sunderland, and Southampton.

It said it was hard to find exact figures of e-scooter accidents because of the way individual hospitals record injuries, but “casualty numbers are growing, and the severity of some casualties is high”.

In the first 10 months of 2021 PACTS found nine deaths involving e-scooters and more than 300 casualties.

e-scooter injuries

E-Scooter Injuries in Bristol

A new report by transport safety charity Pacts shows 90 e-scooter riders went to A&E units in Bristol for treatment in four weeks between May and June. Of those people, 96% were the e-scooter rider, and 80% of that group had been riding hired scooters.

The majority of those injured (71%) fell rather than collided with a pedestrian or other vehicle.

About a fifth came in with head injuries. Three patients had either a traumatic brain injury, haemorrhage or a fractured skull.

Professor Edd Carlton, a consultant in emergency medicine at North Bristol NHS Trust and an associate professor at the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the Pacts report: “Across emergency departments in Bristol over 40 per cent of patients who are treated after e-scooter accidents have fractures, a number also suffer life-changing injuries.

“The average cost of treatment to the NHS for these injuries is nearly £1,000 per patient.”

E-Scooter Accidents

Due to the fact that E-scooters must meet the same standards as motor vehicles, if you have an accident involving an electric scooter then you may be able to make a claim. If you have an electric scooter accident as a passenger, then you may be able to make a claim. You may also be able to make a claim if you were riding an e-scooter and you have an accident involving a car. There are other examples where the person riding the scooter is uninsured or untraceable. In these cases, you may still be able to make a claim. The Motor Insurers’ Bureau deal with compensation claims for people who have accidents with uninsured or untraceable drivers.

How We Can Help

Here at The Compensation Experts, we work with solicitors who have years of experience dealing with personal injury claims. This includes e-scooter injuries. Contact us today by filling in our contact form. Or call us on 01614138765 to speak to one of our friendly experts.