Medico-Legal Report Examples (UK)

The instructing solicitor reads dozens of medico-legal reports a month. Within the first page, they know whether the report will hold up. A clear report wins the next instruction. A vague one comes back with Part 35 questions and a shorter deadline.

This page shows what good medico-legal report examples look like in UK civil work. You get the structure, a worked extract, and a sample chronology, so your panel produces reports with a consistent shape. For the rules behind the structure, start with our guide for medico-legal agencies and the pillar on what a medico-legal report is.

What every good report example shares

Reports differ by specialty and case type. A whiplash report runs to a few pages. A traumatic brain injury report runs to dozens. The shape stays the same, because CPR Part 35 and Practice Direction 35 set the requirements. A good example always shows:

• A clear statement of who instructed the expert, the questions to answer, and the expert’s qualifications.
• The claimant’s own account of the incident and symptoms.
• The documents reviewed: records, imaging, statements and any literature relied on.
• A dated medical history drawn from the records, with sources.
• Examination findings, where an examination took place.
• A reasoned opinion on diagnosis, causation, treatment, and prognosis.
• Any range of opinion, with reasons for the expert’s own view.
• The Part 35 statement of compliance and the statement of truth.

A worked example: personal injury

Take a road traffic accident claim. A 42 year old claimant reports neck and lower back pain after a rear-end collision. An orthopaedic expert receives instructions on condition and prognosis. A strong report frames the instruction, sets out the account, then the history. The opinion section reads like this:

The claimant sustained a soft tissue injury to the cervical and lumbar spine, consistent with the mechanism described. The records show no relevant pre-existing spinal complaint before the index accident. On examination, range of movement has returned to near normal. I expect full resolution within 12 months of the accident date, on the balance of probabilities.

The extract links the injury to the mechanism, addresses pre-existing conditions, and gives a clear prognosis with a timeframe. Each clinical claim traces to the records.

The phrase “no relevant pre-existing spinal complaint” carries weight. The phrase holds only if the expert reviewed the full record. If a back complaint sits in the GP notes from two years before the accident, and the expert misses the entry, the opinion collapses on the first Part 35 question from the defendant.

A worked example: clinical negligence

Clinical negligence reports separate two questions: breach of duty and causation. A good example handles each on its own terms. The expert states the standard of care expected, then whether the care met the standard, then whether any failure caused the harm. The opinion keeps the two apart. A report finding substandard care but no causal link to the injury still fails on causation, and a clear example says so plainly.

The medical history: where quality shows

The medical history separates a strong report from a weak one. Weak examples summarise the records loosely, with few dates and no sources. Strong examples present a dated chronology, each entry tied to a page in the bundle. The solicitor and the opposing expert then check any fact at source.

A sample chronology extract from a multi-provider bundle:

• 02 Feb 2018. GP records low mood and poor sleep. Sertraline 50mg commenced. Referral to IAPT. (p. 86)¨
• 19 Sep 2020. Crisis team contact. Medication review, switch to duloxetine. Follow-up arranged. (p. 412)
• 07 May 2023. Psychiatry clinic letter: sustained improvement, care returned to GP with relapse plan. (p. 1,002) Each row carries a date, a fact, and a source. The expert defends every line. For the full method, read our medical chronology guide.

What makes a report example fail

Reviewers and opposing experts look for the same faults:

• Missed records. A relevant entry buried in the bundle, never addressed. A common ground for a Part 35 question.
• Unsourced facts. Clinical claims with no page reference, impossible to check.
• Advocacy. An opinion arguing the instructing side’s case rather than serving the court.
• Missing range of opinion. No mention of other reasonable views where they exist.
• Wrong or missing declarations. A report without the correct statement of truth. Most of these trace back to the record review. An expert who reads only part of the history misses entries and leaves facts unsourced.

Consistent examples across a panel

Consistency of standards is the agency’s challenge. Style belongs to the expert, and rightly so: every report must be the expert’s own independent work. What the instructing firm notices is variation in the standard underneath: whether every fact carries a source, whether the full record was reviewed, and whether the history holds up to a Part 35 question. The route to a consistent standard is a consistent preparation process: every expert starts from a complete, source-referenced review of the full bundle.

Health Narrator builds the chronology from the full record, typed, handwritten, scanned, or photographed, and shapes the output to the expert’s specialty. Every finding links to the source line, so the history section of every report carries page references by default. The expert reviews, edits, then writes the opinion. Users report up to 70 percent time saved on record review, with a structured first pass in minutes, and greater confidence in report quality on 90 percent of reports. You get sourced facts and a complete record review behind every report, across the whole panel, while the style and the opinion stay the expert’s own.

See what Health Narrator does for your panel. Book a demo.