Medicine
Cardiology expert witnesses
Listed cardiology expert witnesses address chest pain assessment, investigation, intervention and the management of heart failure and arrhythmia. The relevant question is usually what the presentation and the ECG or troponin result required at the time.
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The evidence
What a cardiology expert witness is asked to determine
Cardiac claims are strongly record-led. Observation charts, ECGs, blood results, angiography images and discharge summaries allow a close reconstruction, and the timing of each investigation often decides the case.
- Whether the chest pain assessment and risk stratification recorded were adequate to the presentation.
- Whether the ECG was obtained, interpreted and acted upon within an appropriate period.
- Whether investigation, admission or transfer for intervention was indicated by the findings.
- Whether medication, anticoagulation and follow-up arrangements met the expected standard.
- What difference earlier recognition or treatment would probably have made on the evidence available.
Practitioners are listed across all four UK nations. Location can be narrowed in the register’s location listings before an instruction is made.
Claim contexts
Claims that instruct this discipline
These links describe the question cardiology evidence can answer. They do not prescribe the scope of an individual instruction.
Clinical negligence claims
Assessment, investigation and treatment of cardiac presentations.
View claim type → 02Inquests
Cardiac evidence where the circumstances of a death are being investigated.
View claim type → 03Personal injury claims
Cardiac condition and prognosis following injury or a cardiac event.
View claim type →Search the register by the discipline used in the instruction.
See cardiology listingsReport routes
Reports prepared
The ECG and biochemistry record usually support a records review report without examination. A breach and causation report addresses the decision criticised and the outcome separately.
Where continuing cardiac limitation is claimed, a condition and prognosis report may form a separate part of the evidence. The report pages set out the requirements.
Cardiology expert witness evidence
A cardiologist expert witness works from the ECG, biochemistry and imaging record and states whether the decisions taken were open to a competent clinician at the time.
The register lists practitioners by discipline and location; terms are agreed with the practitioner. See the British Cardiovascular Society alongside the case material.
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