Alternative to recording medicals.

Hi All,

I was talking to a lawyer friend yesterday who used to chair tribunals when I sat as the Disability Adviser on DLA Tribunals.

We talked about several issues including recording medicals.

There is another way to approach this and that is to get in touch with a legal or medical secretary who can do shorthand, and most can. If you can't get either, then a component shorthand typist would suffice. I've seen lots of ads in local newspapers offering this kind of service.

You'd only need their services for an hour at most, so it probably wouldn't cost more than £15 - £25 for taking everything down in shorthand, and typing up a hard copy.

Take them with you to your medical, no need to disclose they're a qualified secretary, just that they're taking notes for you, which is allowed.

If you happen to be one of the unlucky one's who has a bad experience, and I have to state they're in the minority, then you've got a verbatim copy of your medical which you could present to a tribunal.

Hope this is of some help.

Jim

Hi Jim,

that's a very interesting possibility.

You probably wouldn't even need a legal or medical shorthand secretary as everything that the health professional says is intended to be understood by the claimant.

I suspect it would cost more than an hour's time though, because they may well want travel time and you would have to ask them to transcribe it if your claim was refused and you wanted to use the record as evidence. And. of course. claimants are often kept waiting for an hour or more after their appointment time.

But it would still be a lot cheaper than a sound engineer, Atos could not refuse to let your stenographer do their work and it would be very hard evidence for any tribunal not to accept as accurate.

I googled 'shorthand secretary' and this freelance site listed thousands, many of whom charge £10-£15 an hour.

www.peopleperhour.com/find/shorthand_writing

There are plenty of other sites too.

But you'd need to be certain you'd found someone who wouldn't let you down on the day.

Very interesting idea though.

Steve

you wouldn't need a sound engineer

the doctor and my medical pressed the red button himself and then pushed the black button to stop the recording.

about as easy as clicking a mouse button on a lima computer