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Hitting the headlines

17 April 2015 / Mark Solon
Issue: 7648 / Categories: Features , Expert Witness , Profession
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Mark Solon provides a whiplash update

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) continues its crusade to curb the country’s alleged compensation culture and rid the UK of its title of the whiplash capital of Europe by implementing the second part of its “whiplash reform programme” last month.

Meanwhile, the soft-tissue injury has had the Hollywood treatment. It has become a BAFTA-winning film about a college drummer and his ferocious conductor and infamous pop legend Madonna told Jonathan Ross that she had suffered the condition after a wardrobe malfunction that caused her to tumble while performing at the Brit Awards.

The government’s long-awaited reforms, introduced on 6 April, are far less entertaining. They follow a four-week consultation last autumn, and mean that all medical reports in whiplash claims will now have to be commissioned through a single online portal ( www.medco.org.uk ).

Medical experts must be fully trained and registered with the company behind the hub, MedCo Registration Solutions, in order to provide £180 fixed fee medical reports. They are required to pay an

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Birketts—trainee cohort

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Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve charts the turbulent progress of the Employment Rights Bill through the House of Lords, in this week's NLJ
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