Accreditation and CPD
A large part of MedCo’s role is to ensure the independence and quality of medical reports in personal injury claims for whiplash. This includes maintaining the quality and value of training for medical experts through the accreditation process.
Medical experts must be accredited by MedCo before they can be selected to provide medical reports through the MedCo system.
Why is accreditation required?
MedCo’s use is determined by the RTA Small Claims Pre-Action Protocol and/or the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents and it is the system enabling the provision of first fixed costs medical reports.
The Government’s Civil Procedure Rules require all medical experts completing the first fixed costs medical reports in low value soft tissue injury claims to complete accreditation training.
How to become accredited
To become a MedCo-accredited medical expert, you need to register with MedCo and within the following nine months you must complete the online accreditation training. This takes approximately 30 to 40 hours. If you do not complete the accreditation within nine months your application will be rejected and you will need to start the registration and accreditation training again.
Once accredited, you will need to complete continuous professional development (CPD) training each year to maintain accreditation. Introduced on 1 June 2019, this new requirement supplements existing accreditation training. Failure to complete CPD hours will lead to suspension.
MedCo accreditation training
There are eleven training modules which will take 30 to 40 hours to complete:
Module 1 – Introduction to Whiplash Associated Disorder
Module 2 – Occupant Kinematics
Module 3 – Assessment and Investigations
Module 4 – Symptoms of WAD/Effects on ADL
Module 5 – Treatment
Module 6 – WAD recovery and prognostic factors
Module 7 – Chronic Pain
Module 8 – Law and Procedure
Module 9 – Good Medical Practice and Medical Experts
Module 10 - Understanding MedCo
Module 11 - MoJ Whiplash Reforms
To access the training material, log on to your MedCo account at app.medco.co.uk and select the ‘Training’ option on your home page.
The CPD requirement
The CPD academic year runs from 1 June to 31 May each year.
For new medical experts, the annual CPD requirement starts at the beginning of the first CPD academic year after you complete accreditation training. So, if you finish accreditation training in Nov 2022, the CPD requirement runs from 1 June 2023.
Failure to complete the required CPD hours in any academic year will result in suspension which is only lifted when you complete the CPD shortfall from the previous year. Shortfall CPD hours do not count towards the CPD requirement for the current year.
If you do not complete a CPD shortfall within 12 months of the end of the academic year of the shortfall you will be withdrawn from the MedCo system.
Return to Registration
Useful information
Accreditation and CPD FAQs
For further information on the Civil Procedure Rules on the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents see here.
For more information on ICO registration, visit www.ico.org.uk.
For any questions about the accreditation scheme, please email: [email protected].
