UK benefits agency compensation

I was a woodwork teacher for 24 years during which time my work slowly changed from traditional woodwork only to working with solder. metal brazing, casting aluminium, hot plastic coating and vacum forming, and cold plastic welding with solvents,isocyanates,latex adhesives. hard and sotwood dusts as well as dust from chipboards, plywoods, and mild density fibre board MDF. Prior to my retirement I suffered short spells at work of chest tightness and shortage of breath at the end of an active day. this was more so during the winter months when it was not possible to open windows or doors to ventilate the workshops. I was diagnosed by my doctor as mild late onset asthmatic. After retirement I had a major attack requirung admision to hospital. The Consultant questioned me closely regarding my past occupations and concluded that my athma was due to exposure to wood dust he paricularly mentioned mdf and colophony and isocyanates. I claimed industrial injury benifit as advised by the Consulant but my claim was rejected first as late onset of asthma (whatever that means)and on appeal rejected again on the grounds that the substance causing my asthma could not be indentified despite my presentation of a complete history of exposure to asthma causing agents.. My question is how do these people know when they rely soley on a very cursory exmination such as sounding ones chest and blowing into a meter. Can this be considered a satisfactory medical examination. I could go to a specialist which would cost me an arm and a leg and testing is not available on the NHS for claims At least not the sort of investigation that your organisation describes. After insisting my GP did refer me to a specialist under the NH service who rejected my request for a full diagnosis as I had been a smoker and no longer worked with the substances that could be the cause of my asthma. Where do I go from here with all these unanswered questions that concern me

Occupational Asthma, Worker, 2/20/2006, 2/20/2006,

This is an attempt to explain the UK benefits agency compensation scheme for occupational asthma. I am nothing to do with this scheme, but have seen others have problems. The scheme in my opinion is not directed at the main problem, which is to facilitate early removal from exposure, and facilitate retraining where necessary. There is no particular reason why the common purse should pay money to those with asthma from work, rather than those getting asthma for other reasons; common law claims are for this. To claim you need to identify the cause (in the balance of probabilities, i.e. more likely than not). Several agents that you mention are on the list, including wood dusts, latex, colophony and isocyanates. The claim goes to an adjudication officer, whose job is to confirm that you are employed where you say you are, and are exposed to the agent that you have identified as the cause. For this your employer is written to to confirm both facts. Fairly often the employer states that you are not exposed to the agents identified (often through lack of knowledge from the person replying). Your claim then fails before you have seen anybody medical. An appeal is then against the facts of employment and exposure, for which you will usually have to provide evidence. Once past the adjudication officer, you will be seen by a doctor who has to decide on the evidence available whether you have asthma, whether it is caused by the agent you have identified, and how disabled you are. If you are judged to have occupational asthma and are thought to be less than 14% disabled, you receive no money. The diagnosis is rarely helped by examining the chest, measures of lung function assist in defining disability rather than the cause. The diagnosis can by suggested from the history of relationship between symptoms and specific agents at work, and substantially strengthened by measurements made while you were at work, particularly serial measurements of peak expiratory flow (the main focus of this website). Finding specific IgE (allergic) antibodies to some agents, such as latex, would strengthen the case; they are however unreliable or unavailable for most woods, colophony and isocyanates. Compensation in other countries combines common law and statutory schemes into one, and the best require the insurance companies to pay for expert investigation, usually with exposure challenge tests. This is not the situation in the UK. Not all asthma coming on in adults is due to work exposures, there are many other possibilities including drugs (particularly beta blockers and pain killers), new domestic exposures, severe infections or unusual exposures such as fires, and some people get asthma for no identifiable reason.

2/20/2006