A guide to compensation for asbestos-related diseases

Our plain-English summary of A guide to compensation for asbestos-related diseases, by M.G. Britton, D.T. Hughes, T.J. Phillips (British Medical Journal, 1981).

The study

• Authors: M.G. Britton, D.T. Hughes, T.J. Phillips
• Journal: British Medical Journal
• Published: 1981;282(6282):2107-11
• Cited by: 12 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 001818).

Summary of the article

This review, written for clinicians, set out how patients in Britain with asbestos-related disease could obtain compensation. It covered two routes: industrial injuries benefit and common law compensation. The authors stressed that 'asbestosis' should refer only to fibrosis of the lung. Under the Social Security Act 1975, industrial injuries benefit required a prescribed disease and work in a prescribed occupation at some time since 5 July 1948. The relevant prescribed diseases were pneumoconiosis, which includes asbestosis, and diffuse mesothelioma. People with pleural changes alone were not eligible. Lung cancer was not a prescribed disease, but pneumoconiosis medical boards accepted it as a consequence of asbestosis. The authors described how asbestosis and mesothelioma are diagnosed. They also described the claims procedure: insurance officers, pneumoconiosis medical panels and boards, and appeals. Disablement was assessed in steps of 10%, and the basic pension at 100% was £44.30 a week. The article also covered death benefit and coroners' investigations. For common law claims, the claimant had to show that the disability was caused by the occupation and resulted from employer negligence under the asbestos-related regulations of 1931 to 1969. Proceedings had to start within three years of the claimant becoming aware of the diagnosis. The authors concluded that fair compensation would not be possible until awards could reflect the claimant's condition at the time of the award, with a right to claim more if the condition worsened or the claimant died.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This 1981 article was a guide for doctors, not a research study, on how patients in Britain could seek compensation for asbestos-related disease. The authors stressed that asbestosis should mean only fibrosis of the lung. They described industrial injuries benefit, which required a prescribed disease and work in a prescribed occupation at some time since 5 July 1948. The asbestos-related prescribed diseases were pneumoconiosis, which includes asbestosis, and diffuse pleural or peritoneal mesothelioma. Under this scheme, pleural changes alone did not qualify. Lung carcinoma was not prescribed, but medical boards accepted it as a consequence of asbestosis. The article said asbestos bodies in sputum confirm only past exposure, and that mesothelioma usually appears 20 to 40 years after first exposure. It also covered disablement assessment, death benefit and common law claims against employers. Those claims had to be started within three years of the claimant becoming aware of the diagnosis, or they might become statute barred. The authors concluded that fair compensation would not be possible until awards could reflect the claimant's condition at the time, with a right to further compensation if deterioration or death occurred.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Review/guide article ("Occasional Review") giving clinicians basic facts about compensation for asbestos-related diseases in Britain; no new data were collected
• Who was studied: No study population. The article describes British compensation arrangements as of 1981, covering England and Wales and also Scotland, for doctors advising patients with possible asbestos-related disease
• Exposure: Occupational asbestos exposure in general; no specific fiber types are named. The prescribed occupations involved working or handling asbestos or asbestos admixtures, including manufacture or repair of asbestos textiles and articles, cleaning of related machinery and plant, and substantial exposure to dust from these operations
• Main results:
  • The authors stated that the term asbestosis should be used only for fibrosis of the lung, not for the whole range of asbestos-related diseases
  • Industrial injuries benefit required a prescribed disease and employment in a prescribed occupation at some time since 5 July 1948
  • Diffuse mesothelioma (disease No 44), defined as a primary malignant neoplasm of the mesothelium of the pleura or the peritoneum, was a prescribed disease
  • Under the industrial injuries scheme, a person with asbestos-associated pleural changes alone was not eligible for compensation. The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council intended to examine the case for making diffuse pleural thickening eligible
  • At common law there is no list of eligible conditions. The authors described diffuse pleural thickening on its own, and lung carcinoma without asbestosis, as cases where controversy may arise, with the final decision resting with a judge
  • Lung carcinoma was not a prescribed disease, but pneumoconiosis medical boards accepted it as a consequence of asbestosis when assessing disablement
  • Asbestos bodies in sputum confirm only past exposure and do not in themselves indicate disease
  • The interval from first exposure to the appearance of mesothelioma was described as usually 20 to 40 years
  • Disablement was assessed in steps of 10%, with a pension of at least 10% once a diagnosis was made
  • Death benefit was payable only if death was caused or materially accelerated by a prescribed disease
  • Common law claims had to be started within three years of the claimant becoming aware of the diagnosis; otherwise the claim might become statute barred
  • The basic disablement pension for a 100% assessment was printed as '£44 30' a week, which the OCR has damaged. The amount appears to be 44 pounds 30
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that fair compensation for asbestos-related disease would not be possible until an award could be made on the basis of the claimant's condition at the time of the award, with the right to apply for further compensation if or when deterioration or death occurred

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Fibrosis, Pneumoconiosis, Mesothelioma, Lung Cancer, Appeal, Negligence.

Related studies

• Compensation for asbestos-related diseases--the U.K. model — M. Britton (1989)
• Lump sum compensation for asbestos related lung disease — T. Williams, P. Slade, et al. (1998)
• Workers' compensation for nonmalignant asbestos-related lung disease — C. Nevitt, W. Daniell, et al. (1994)
• Asbestos, asbestos-related diseases, and compensation claims in The Netherlands — P. Swuste, A. Burdorf, et al. (2004)
• Hyperventilation in men claiming compensation for benign asbestos-related diseases — G.K. Crompton (2010)
• Compensation scheme for complementary and alternative medicine use in asbestos-related diseases in New South Wales, Australia — C. Oak, H.J. Choi, et al. (2012)

Browse more research in British Medical Journal, or return to medical research.