weighing up EMP and GP evidence - new decision in toolkit

useful new decision added to toolkit - CDLA/2849/2000 - says, in para 7 -

‘The examination and report of an examining medical practitioner will often carry great weight because the doctor concerned will indeed be independent. However, there is a downside to that. The examination will, inevitably, be short. The examining medical practitioner will usually be seeing the person examined for the first time and will know little about that person. He or she will not usually have seen the examinee’s medical notes or the results of any tests undergone. An important function of tribunals is to “even matters up” by identifying deficiencies in the examining medical practitioner’s report and then remedying them. Although great weight should normally be given to what the examining medical practitioner says, his or her report should not be approached uncritically. A tribunal should listen to what an appellant says and consider the medical evidence as a whole. In many cases the tribunal will have so much more information available to it than was available to the examining medical practitioner that it will not be unreasonable to consider whether the examining medical practitioner would have given his or her answers in quite the form in which they were given had the doctor had the benefit of the information before the tribunal. Further, reports or statements from general practitioners vary greatly. Many contribute little to the resolution of the issues before a tribunal. However, it has frequently been stressed by Commissioners that positive, focused and objective reports from general practitioners who have been treating a patient for some time may need to be given greater weight than a report from an examining medical practitioner – because the latter will only have seen the examinee for a short time and will not have access to his or her detailed medical history.’

thanks very much to ken butler at disability alliance for sending us the decision.