Parliamentary Connections

The news that Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – certainly not to be confused with Lord (David) Hunt of Wirral – has returned as a minister at the Department of Health is good news for all those with an interest in promoting rehabilitation in personal injury cases.
Before he resigned in protest at Tony Blair's decision to join the war aganist Iraq, he was the only government minister to show any interest in the insurance industry's drive to embrace rehabilitation, showing a ready understanding of the need to provide better linkage between the NHS and the private sector rehabilitation services. He was prepared to meet people from the industry, trying to understand their frustrations at the number of people who should receive prompt rehabilitation but didn't because of the poor information coming from the NHS and the lack of understanding of the likely availability of private funding for rehabilitation where the accident occurred at work or in a morot accident.
Hopefully, he can pick up the threads of this debate very quickly as many of the same issues remain to be addressed three and a half years after he resigned.