ABSTRACT
Most GPs will, at some stage of their career, be required to attend court to give evidence. This chapter offers guidance to GPs involved in medico-legal work. A firm of solicitors contacted a patient's GP for a detailed medical report. As solicitors, accountants and other professionals tend to charge according to actual time, GPs should consider adopting this practice to suit their own circumstances. The fees that GPs may charge for undertaking medico-legal work vary and generally depend on whether or not the solicitor's client is in receipt of legal aid. In civil cases where legal aid is not involved, GPs are generally able to set their own fees for undertaking medico-legal work. The British Medical Association recognises that in an era when GPs are facing unprecedented demands upon their time from non-NHS sources and commitments, individual doctors must retain the ultimate discretion of what to charge for calls upon their clinical expertise.
