In order to help our clients bring their personal injury claims, we engage independent medical experts to produce reports about the injuries sustained.
How do we work with medical experts?
The involvement of medical experts or medico-legal experts in a personal injury claim can be vital. They are instructed to independently determine the cause of, and the extent of, your injuries, which will allow your solicitor to better assess the likelihood of success in bringing a claim on your behalf and the amount of compensation you should be asking for. They can also provide recommendations for rehabilitation, treatment or adaptations to the workplace or home that will be helpful to you.
The type of expert instructed will depend on the type of injury suffered and/or part of the body affected. We appoint medical experts to help us understand the immediate and long-term impact of an injury. Medical experts have to review your medical records to ensure they have the ‘full picture’ of how your injuries have affected you. Some cases require input from multiple experts. It doesn’t matter who pays the expert’s fees, their duty is to the court, not the person paying them, which is why they must remain impartial when assessing an injured person’s injuries.
Here is the first part, and we continue to set out some of the most commonly used expert disciplines, and the reasons why we may need to use them.
Psychiatrist
Psychiatrists are medically qualified doctors who have undergone extensive training in general medicine before specialising in mental health. This medical background allows them to diagnose and treat a comprehensive range of mental health conditions, encompassing everything from common issues like anxiety and depression to more complex disorders such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or severe mood disorders.
They can prescribe medication to manage mental health symptoms, and in some cases, they can also perform certain medical procedures related to mental health.
In personal injury claims, a psychiatrist is typically instructed when a client has experienced psychological distress or a diagnosable mental illness as a direct result of an accident or their injuries. Their expert opinion is vital for the court to understand the causation (whether the mental health condition was caused by the accident), the prognosis (the likely future course and outcome of the condition, including potential for recovery), and the impact on the client’s life. This assessment helps determine the appropriate level of compensation needed for ongoing treatment, therapy, and to account for any long-term psychological impairment.
Psychologist
Unlike psychiatrists, who can prescribe medication, psychologists are usually not authorised to do so. A Psychologist specialises in understanding how people think, feel and behave following an accident. They focus on talking therapy or counselling. We might send a client to a Psychologist if they are experiencing symptoms that can be helped with psychological treatments such as anxiety or depression. They will often be instructed to provide a report where a client has been involved in a road traffic collision that has left them with travel anxiety or to help them return where the accident happened.
Neuropsychiatrist
A Neuropsychiatrist specialises in both psychiatry (mental health) and neurology (the brain and nervous system). This dual specialisation allows them to expertly assess complex cases where an injury has impacted both the brain’s physical function and a person’s mental well-being. Their key role often involves diagnosing and understanding conditions such as Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) – which can range from concussions to more severe brain damage – and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), where neurological symptoms occur without a clear physical cause in the brain, often triggered by psychological stress or trauma. Beyond these, they can also diagnose a wide array of mental health conditions that might arise following an accident, such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD.
To form a comprehensive opinion, a Neuropsychiatrist might conduct various assessments, specifically testing for memory issues, evaluating mood and behavioural changes, or investigating the underlying causes of seizures.
A Neuropsychiatrist can recommend medications, therapy or lifestyle adaptations. While they often collaborate closely with other specialists, such as neurosurgeons, for surgical considerations, it’s important to note that Neuropsychiatrists do not typically perform surgery themselves. Their expert reports are critical in personal injury claims for establishing the causal link between the accident and the neuropsychiatric condition, detailing the prognosis, and outlining the necessary future care and associated costs.
Neuropsychologist
Neuropsychologists are generally asked to review clients who have sustained mild to severe brain injuries. These types of injuries usually occur following serious road traffic collisions but can also follow an accident at work where a head injury is sustained, sporting accidents, accidents involving heights or injuries caused by a violent act.
A Neuropsychologist’s primary role is to diagnose symptoms of concussion and various neurocognitive disorders. They achieve this by conducting detailed neurocognitive tests, which help identify issues such as fatigue, anxiety, stress, and even tinnitus (ringing in the ears) that may have been caused by the injury.
Following their assessment, they can recommend various interventions to aid recovery. This might include referring a client for fatigue management programs, suggesting appropriate cognitive strategies to cope with challenges, or recommending an Occupational Therapist to help clients regain daily living skills and adapt to any lasting impairments. Their expert opinion is crucial for understanding the extent of cognitive and psychological deficits, their impact on the client’s life, and the necessary steps for rehabilitation and long-term support.
What does this mean for our clients?
We always discuss with clients which medical expert (or experts) are appropriate to instruct as we progress their claim. Appointments can be arranged locally or even at home in some circumstances.
Once an examination has taken place, we will receive a medico-legal report, which will be discussed with our clients before being disclosed to the relevant parties and used to value the level of compensation they might expect to receive.
At Enable Law we always go above and beyond to support our clients and identify the right support and equipment to get their lives back on track following their injury. We always listen to what matters to them and use our wider network to find solutions that meet their needs. Our goal is not to just help clients improve their lives but to get them back to as close as possible to where they would have been had their injury never happened. It is what matters to them that is important to us, and this can differ widely from one person to another. From finding adapted ways to get someone back into sailing to helping them get back into horseback riding or being able to continue travelling the world we have links with the right experts to help us understand what it will take so we can provision for money to make these things happen through their claim.
To have a free confidential chat with Emma Barnes or another member of our personal injury team call us on 0800 044 8488 or fill in our contact form so we can call you back at a time convenient for you.
