Medicine
HIV expert witnesses
Listed HIV expert witnesses address testing, diagnosis, antiretroviral treatment and the management of complications. Confidentiality and the handling of results frequently form part of the instruction.
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The evidence
What a HIV expert witness is asked to determine
HIV evidence is closely governed by testing and disclosure practice. Whether a test was offered, how a result was communicated and how treatment was monitored are separate questions, and the records address each differently. Where a missed opportunity to test is alleged, the report should identify the testing policy applying at the relevant date rather than current practice.
- Whether testing was offered in the circumstances the records describe.
- Whether a positive result was communicated and acted upon appropriately.
- Whether antiretroviral treatment was selected, started and monitored in line with the results recorded.
- Whether opportunistic infection or drug toxicity was recognised and managed.
- What difference earlier diagnosis would probably have made to treatment and prognosis.
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 HIV evidence can answer. They do not prescribe the scope of an individual instruction.
Clinical negligence claims
Testing, diagnosis and treatment decisions in HIV care.
View claim type → 02Personal injury claims
Consequences of infection and its continuing effect.
View claim type → 03Inquests
HIV-related evidence where a death is being investigated.
View claim type →Search the register by the discipline used in the instruction.
See HIV listingsReport routes
Reports prepared
Testing, results and prescribing records support a records review report. A breach and causation report addresses the effect of any delay identified.
Where continuing consequences are claimed, a condition and prognosis report may be instructed. The report page for each route sets out its scope.
HIV expert witness evidence
An HIV expert witness addresses testing, communication and treatment as distinct questions, each answered from the record that governs it.
Listings can be narrowed by discipline and location, and the approach is made to the practitioner. See the British HIV Association alongside the case material.
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