Revised Model Order - Medical Evidence
25 March 2011
by Ed Tomlinson, Financial Planner
A number of defendants are insisting on a clause to be inserted into the schedule of an Order where a periodical payment is to be made. The clause insists that the claimant must provide medical evidence to the defendant before they will pay them the periodical payment due.
In the Revised Model Order, which received approval by the now retired High Court Judge Sir Christopher Holland in December 2008 ([2008] EWHC 2948 (QB)), the following wording is used at paragraph 5 of Part 1 of the Schedule.
“The NHSLA shall be entitled to require the Claimant to produce evidence in a form reasonably satisfactory to the NHSLA that the Claimant remains alive before making any periodical payment.”
Essentially, it allows defendants to request evidence that the claimant is still alive before making payment, and if they do it obliges the claimant to provide the evidence, however it does not oblige the claimant to provide the evidence without request. This is an important point especially when the Order, in some cases, is expected to last for more than 60 years.
Furthermore some defendants are insisting on medical evidence to be provided by a medical practitioner even where a professional deputy is in place. In a recent case, a Court-appointed deputy requested evidence from a client’s GP. When, after numerous requests all at cost to the client, she received the following;
“I have last seen this patient at the surgery on Tuesday the 10th of February 2009 and have not received any information to state he has died since. As far as I am aware this boy is still alive.”
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