Future Provision of Medical Reports in Road Traffic Accident (RTA) related Claims Consultation

Published: 5 September 2019

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has today published the Government response to its consultation on the provision of medical reports. This will form part of a number of changes to support the increase to the small claims track limit (SCT) for road traffic accident related personal injury claims in April 2020.

Some important points to note are:-

  • The MedCo system will be extended to cover the provision of initial medical reports in relation to all RTA related personal injury claims under £5,000.
  • The provision of initial medical reports for non-soft tissue personal injury claims, whether or not accompanied by a soft tissue injury, are to be limited to General Practitioners (GPs) and Accident and Emergency (A&E) consultants only.
  • MoJ officials will develop, in conjunction with MedCo, new qualifying criteria (QC) on customer care, standard service level agreements (SLAs) and accessible information for claimants. These are to be applied to/used by medical reporting organisations (MROs) and direct medical experts (DMEs) providing services to unrepresented claimants through the MedCo process.
  • A new web service is being developed through which all lower value RTA claims will be processed. Unrepresented claimants will be able to obtain medical reports via this new service which will have a direct interface (API) with the MedCo portal.
  • Legal representatives will continue to be able to obtain medical reports for their clients via the existing direct access procedure with the MedCo portal.

Read the full consultation response at: MoJ Consultation – Future provision of medical reports

Comment

MedCo’s Executive Chair, Martin Heskins said:-

“For some months now MedCo has been preparing for these reforms based on a number of assumptions.  I am pleased to say that the MoJ’s response has confirmed that those assumptions were correct.   Consequently, preparations for MedCo’s part in these reforms are well advanced and I am confident that everything we are required to do will be successfully achieved before the April 2020 deadline”.

Further information

MedCo’s workplan for the next 3 months includes:

  • API connectivity and testing with the new web portal.
  • Survey of medical report providers wishing to “opt in”.
  • Additional medical expert accreditation planning.
  • MRO and DME audit planning.
  • Discussions with the MoJ on new customer care QC and SLAs.
  • A series of events in November for all MedCo registered users.