SalfordOnline
Your local community website
   Asbestos disease lawyer welcomes Goverment pleural plaques commitment
A leading workplace injury lawyer has welcomed a long-awaited government decision to award compensation to some pleural plaques sufferers. Although Geraldine Coombs, partner and industrial illness specialist at the Manchester office of national law firm Irwin Mitchell, said that whilst the compensation scheme was very limited in scope, she welcomed the financial support it would give to many sufferers of the asbestos-related condition. Anyone who was diagnosed with pleural plaques before October 2007, and who had sought advice from a lawyer or trade union before that time, should be able to continue with their compensation claim. Geraldine Coombs said: “This has been a long time coming – a really long time – and the overwhelming feeling is relief that we can finally offer clarity to pleural plaques sufferers who have been waiting to hear whether they will be entitled to compensation for their condition. “We cannot underestimate the impact that this wait has had on thousands of sufferers who have had to wait almost three years for any certainty. “Now a decision has been made and the scheme is disappointingly, but not surprisingly, limited in scope in that it will not offer any help to those diagnosed after October 2007, however we are grateful that there will be support available and this news is therefore welcome,” she concluded. Pleural Plaques – benign scarring of the lungs caused by exposure to asbestos – has been the centre of a debate since October 2007, when the House of Lords ruled unanimously that those with the condition should not be eligible for compensation on the basis that it is a symptom-less disease, albeit carrying a risk of a much more serious disease in the future. Photo: Geraldine Coombs Source: Souters. Due to problems with spam only SalfordOnline members can now leave comments. Becoming a member of SalfordOnline only takes a minute, just hit the red Join Us button at the top right hand side of the page to create your Personal account. Got a news story? Need help with publicity for an event in Salford? Send it to newsdesk@salfordonline.com or call the SalfordOnline newsdesk on 0161 789 5377. |
