Whiplash Claim Delays Prove To Be A Real Pain In The Neck
With the recent announcement from the Ministry of Justice that it would be extending the accreditation deadline for medical experts who wished to sign up to the MedCo scheme, it has seen yet another delay added to what increasingly seems to be a doomed attempt to help reduce whiplash fraud.
When the scheme was confirmed at the end of 2014, the original deadline for registering was pencilled in as 6th April 2016, with only accredited experts being able to write whiplash reports after the date. Due to the fact that only 132 experts had been accredited to date, the government took heed of a warning on the shortage of experts who could diagnose the common RTA injury and the deadline has been moved to 1st June.
In an announcement on their site, MedCo said:
“MedCo has recently received a number of enquiries about […] whether Experts who are not accredited by April 6th 2016 but were instructed on a case prior to the deadline can provide a valid medical report. MedCo has taken this issue to the MoJ, together with Experts’ concerns about successfully achieving accreditation by April 6th due to recent changes to the Accreditation Training programme.
The Master of the Rolls has agreed to extend the accreditation deadline to 1st June 2016.”
The news comes just weeks after The Law Society Gazette had revealed that due to a change in provider, doctors who hadn’t completed the full accreditation programme would have to start their training from square one again leading to a chorus of grumbling from the medical and legal professions. As the original training model allowed for separate training providers, it didn’t provide the speed and flexibility required by the company to be able to update the accreditation training as necessary.
Do you think the delays are for the best or just another example of government reforms being out of touch with the requirements of the legal industry?