ariadne
CAB adviser, welfare lawyer and ex law lecturer, Basingstoke CAB
Member since 26th Jan 2007
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RE: WITHHOLDING HARMFUL MEDICAL INFORMATION IN APPEAL CASES
Wed 28-Feb-07 05:17 PM |
While stooging around the Toolbox I came across the Benchbook, which is the official guidance for Tribunals. There's quite a careful discussion of this under the heading "harmful medical evidence". It certainly seems to show that Tribunals should be careful about accepting what the Dept thinks about this and raises the Human Rights issue. Interestingly it suggests that the probelm is likely to be rare. Most people know already, in fact. It's also quite good on what actually is harmful evidence, eg not a note from the doctor saying (I've seen this)that this person is malingering. A Chairman had (correctly on the guidance) in this case ruled that whether or not the doctor had written it on the page for harmful evidence, it wasn't, or only to the relationship between doctor and patient!
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