Hi everyone

I seem to remember seeing a CD somewhere on Rightsnet concerning appeal members asking to see the letter we have sent the GP asking for evidence, particularly for IB appeals. I've got a letter form a GP which has quoted more or less parrot-fashion what I told her!!! Has anyone got any idea if there is such a CD regarding us asking GP's leading questions?

Hi

Have a look at rigtsnet brief case, CSDLA/532/2005 and other related decision. Have to say that it does not answer your exact point
( cannot find a CD on it, does not mean there is non!)but these CDs one way or another relate to medical evidence and the exclusive duties of the tribunals to examin every Piece of evidence.

I don’t think there was a CD on this point and I don’t think there could be. I say this because unlike the courts there are no technical rules of evidence. All evidence is permissible, including hearsay. What a tribunal has to decided is how much weight is to be attached to a particular piece of evidence and that is a matter for the tribunal’s inquisitorial function.

To refuse to admit specialist evidence because the letter of instruction was not disclosed would be unlawful in my view but an adverse inference may be legitimately drawn. But caution must be exercised here because an adverse inference must have something concrete to support it.

Merely stating the problems as your client reported and then asking for the GP to comment is not necessarily asking leading questions. Leading questions are more in the nature of closed questions, or questions which suggest the answer, i.e. was the coat the defendant was wearing that night blue? However, if the GP merely repeats back what the patient told you then that might add nothing.

Disclosure of the letter of instruction was first raised in a formal arena, as far as I’m aware, in The Tribunals Service’s Benchbook of tribunal protocol and procedure.

Even a "leading question" in the true meaning does not make evidence inadmissable - formal laws of evidence do not apply to tribunals - see CDLA/2466/2007 on that point.

More useful in the present situation might be CIB/14442/1996 which held that as a professional, a GP is not forced to give any particular answer - he or she can always disagree with a particular statement, or the picture of a claimant's care needs as presented by their rep.

Thanks for that! Will have a look at the decisions mentioned.

Can't rememebr the number, but there was a CD which upheld a decision of a Tribunal who had not attributed much weight to a GP's report consisting of a tick-list prepared by a rep. This is why Tribunals will always want to see the letter of instructions to any medical witness, basically so they can see what the doctor thinks off his own head, rather than what he has been prompted to say. See para 17b of the section on representatives in the Benchbook (which is somewhere on this site, I know).

Open questions, rather than closed ones, are generally more productive. The most impressive of all, of course, are the (rare) GPs who write in anger and without charge "I don't know why you have refused Mrs X, she is one of the most diabled patients I have..."etc.

None of the links to The Benchbook work anymore. The Benchbook used to be available on the old Appeals Service website, but has disappeared from the Tribunals Service site. I recently asked a tribunal clerk for an extract from the Book and was told that even he didn't have access to it.

yes, looks like the appeals service removed the benchbook from their website earlier this year