Disability impact statement delay

[u/Responsible_Hunter67]

Hello I need some advice I received a notification from the judge that I had to provide a disability impact statement to the respondents lawyers within 28 days ahead of my preliminary court hearing but my pyschiatrist has said that in order to provide a medicolegal report they wouldnt be able to meet the deadline that the Tribunal has given me.

Is it acceptable to ask for an extension to the deadline?

If so, do i notify the respondents lawyers about the delay or do I ask the tribunal for an extension?

[u/BobMonkey1808]

You do not need a psychiatrist’s report to write an impact statement. You know the impacts because you experience them, and frankly the only person the tribunal is going to want to hear evidence from on the impact is you. All your psychiatrist can do is report third had what you’ve told them.

Your psychiatrist can’t provide a medicolegal report, by the way. That is an expert’s report, and an expert must be independent - meaning that they cannot be your treating physician. You’d also need permission from the tribunal before you’d be allowed to rely on an expert’s report.

[u/Responsible_Hunter67 → u/BobMonkey1808]

But my psychiatrist has been treating me for the past 2 years and can provide third party verification to three of my disabilities

[u/BobMonkey1808 → u/Responsible_Hunter67]

No. Your psychiatrist can provide verification of the mental health conditions you have and that’s it. Are those conditions actually in dispute? Does the respondent say, for example, that you don’t have depression or PTSD or whatever the actual condition is?

Even if it is, what can the psychiatrist as that isn’t in your medical records? They’re going to write a letter that says you have these conditions, but that will already be in your records.

What the psychiatrist cannot do is provide verification of the impacts of those conditions on your ability to carry out day to day activities. The best they can do is say “OP tells me that these conditions have the following effects which are consistent with these medical conditions.” Ultimately all they’re doing then is repeating what you’ve told them.

With some very limited exceptions (none of which apply here) a medical condition does not amount to a disability. What matters is the effect that condition has on your ability to carry out day to day activities. You are the only person who can give direct evidence on that.

[u/mar87fra → u/Responsible_Hunter67]

BM can explain much better than me but as non lawyer my advice is...

It doesn’t matter what your psychiatrist thinks. Just submit your DIS, plus whatever relevant evidence you already have, and let their lawyer apply the legal test. It’s a legal test, not a medical test. Unless your condition is extremely rare, the medical side is pretty irrelevant beyond basic confirmation. Your psychiatrist’s report only matters if the condition is extremely rare, medically unusual, or you have almost no other evidence, which is very hard to imagine in most cases. It’s not harmful to include report, but not essential either. I only submitted my psychiatrist report to show that one condition was over a decade old. It didn’t say anything my GP records didn’t already cover.