When one person suffers an injury, the impact does not stop there.
An injury travels. It ripples through the family and out the other side into the wider orbit of that person, to their workplace, their immediate social circle, and beyond. More than 430,000 people were injured by negligence last year in the UK, including at work, on the roads, in public spaces, and during medical treatment. For each one of those injured people, there are several people around them picking up the pieces and feeling the knock-on effect of negligence.
A lifelong, life-changing injury is not a solo experience. Even for those who will recover fully, the hardship and disruption still spill over. A partner might have to reduce their working hours for a time, friends will pick up the childcare, colleagues will mobilise, and grandparents will relocate to be nearer so that they can provide hands-on support. For both the family and the injured person, it can take a long time for their standard of living to return to ‘normal’ – if it ever does.
But the practical and financial hardship is not the whole picture. At APIL, we speak regularly with victims of negligence about their experiences. We also have illuminating conversations with their family members. We’ve heard of couples whose dreams of expanding their families have been dashed because of injury, children living on edge that their parent might be injured again, others feeling sidelined while everyone rallies around their injured sibling, spouses adjusting to their partners’ change in personality after brain injury, and parents giving up hobbies and careers they love because their injured child needs them more. These people endure the emotional, financial, and social toll of needless harm. These often-overlooked players are heroes in the stories of many victims of negligence.
We created the Severe Injury Help Hub after a wife shared what it was like for her in the days and weeks following her husband’s injury in a catastrophic road crash. He was in a coma at a specialist unit 30 miles away from their home, held all the access to couple’s bank accounts and was the household’s main earner. She worked a zero-hours contract, so when her pay stopped immediately because she was travelling to be at her husband’s side, she found herself borrowing from friends to pay for her train and bus fares to get to him. She did not understand some of the medical terminology being used, was distressed, confused, and felt very alone. The Hub is an online directory of resources to help with issues such as paying the mortgage, accessing bank accounts, finding support, and finding an experienced, accredited lawyer.
Through a freedom of information request, we know that 433,198* in the UK registered an avoidable injury in 2025 for which they wanted to make a claim for redress. It is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of scale (because far from every victim makes a claim) and in impact on our society. Because the headline statistics about injuries and claims do not tell the full story. All too often the focus of policymakers is on the numbers and, specifically, financial cost to wrongdoers of paying for negligence, rather than the human cost in suffering and upturned lives. The impact of needless harm must be acknowledged by all of us, after all, anyone could find themselves affected.
The personal injury sector comes together every year to mark Injury Awareness Week, which for 2026 will begin on 22 June.
Keep up with the action by searching the hashtag #IAWeek2026 or visit Injury Awareness Week on Facebook, or APIL’s X, Instagram, Bluesky and LinkedIn channels.
*Source: Department for Work and Pensions data for Great Britain 2025 plus Department for Communities in Northern Ireland data for Northern Ireland 2025, obtained by APIL through a Freedom of Information request.