In the December 2019 issue of the Bar Review, Orla Kelly of Cantillons Solicitors questions two recent dicta of the Irish High Court, in an article entitled ‘To refer or not to refer: Are solicitor referrals to a medical consultant a step too far for prudent practice?’.
In Flannery v. HSE [2018] IEHC 127 and O’Connell v. Martin [2019] IEHC 571, Barr J and Twomey J respectively questioned the practice of referring a plaintiff directly to a specialist. They both suggested that it should have been for the plaintiffs’ general practitioners to decide who they should be referred to.
In her conclusion, Ms Kelly writes: “… it is respectively suggested that it is a step too far to dismiss the evidence of a specialist expert, simply because the referral came from a solicitors. If GP referrals to a specialist are a necessary prerequisite before the evidence of a specialist is accepted, then the evidence of all defendant experts (retained by claims handlers) would be excluded. That would equally be unacceptable.“
To read the original article, see here.