Consultation outcome

Future Provision of Medical Reports in Road Traffic Accident related personal injury claims

From:: Ministry of Justice
Published: 18 April 2019
Last updated: 5 September 2019 — See all updates

Read the full outcome

Government response to the future provision of medical reports

PDF, 966 KB, 60 pages

Detail of outcome

Following analysis of the consultation responses, the government has now agreed the way forward in respect of how unrepresented claimants can obtain medical evidence following the implementation of Part 1 of the Civil Liability Act 2018 and other related reforms. In summary, the government has decided that:

the current MedCo system for the provision of soft-tissue injury claims will be extended to cover initial medical reports for all RTA related personal injury claims under £5,000
the provision of initial medical reports for non-soft tissue personal injury claims will be limited to General Practitioners and Accident and Emergency consultants only
the fixed recoverable costs regime for soft-tissue injury medical reports will be extended to apply to all initial RTA related non-soft tissue injury medical reports for claims under £5,000
new customer care qualifying criteria, standard service level agreements and accessible information for claimants will be developed for medical reporting organisations and medical experts

Original consultation

Consultation description

As part of its whiplash reform programme, the government is making changes via the Civil Procedure Rules to increase the small claims track limit for road traffic accident (RTA) related personal injury claims to £5,000.

To support this change, a new IT Platform is being designed to enable unrepresented litigants to progress their own claim irrespective of whether they have legal representation. Decisions are required on a number of issues relating to how unrepresented claimants will in future obtain a medical report. The government is therefore conducting a short, focused consultation to seek views on a revised medical reporting process for unrepresented claimants. In summary, we are seeking views on:

Expanding MedCo’s remit to cover initial medical reports for all RTA related personal injury claims under £5,000
Whether to widen the type of medical expert who can be registered on the MedCo system
Whether to extend the existing fixed cost medical report regime for medical reports
The procedure for unrepresented claimants to obtain medical evidence

We are interested in hearing from expert stakeholders from the medical reporting sector as well as from claimant lawyers, defendant lawyers, compensators and any other interested parties.

Documents