Accident Claims Advice: If you believe your health has been affected by your work place and thinking about contacting a Solicitor about making a Claim against your Employer, you will need to clearly document everything about how your health problems came about. Printed documents are best as hand writing can be hard to read by anyone other than the person that wrote it.

If you have had an Accident or Work Related Illness, you must bring a claim within 3 years of the incident or the Court has the power to refuse to allow your Claim.

Unfair Dismissal or Constructive Dismissal claims must be made within three months of the effective date of termination of your employment. See Unfair Dismissal for more on that subject.

Another claim you may make is Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit or Reduced Earnings through illness caused by your work. These claims are made against your National Insurance contributions. For more on that subject, see Disablement Benefit.

Back to Accident Claims Advice:Solicitors will need a full detailed report on conditions you thought caused your illness including dates/ times and witnesses or potential witnesses. Health and Safety (HSE) reports into the incident are also desirable when available.

If the HSE have researched your employers over your incident, you can apply to the HSE to have a copy of their report through the Freedom of Information Act.

In most cases, you will need a Medical Specialist Report before you can take your Claim to Court. Any Specialist you see about your health problems should be given all the data you have produced for your Solicitor, including a copy of the HSE report if you have one.

Medical people can sometimes start to mistrust you if they suspect you are only interested in receiving a large amount of money through your claim, so the Written Evidence should help convince them to take your Health Problems Seriously.

The Written Evidence also makes sure that any reports medical people produce are accurate. Many people have read their doctors reports only to end up wondering if the report was actually about them. By that time, it is often too late to try and have that medical person create an accurate report. Many medical people do not like being told by their patients they have made a mistake.

You should also make it clear to any NHS Specialist concerned that if they do not want to get involved in a court case, they should document your tests and treatment carefully as that evidence will be needed for another specialist to view so they can make a report for the court case.

Your Solicitor will be able to hire a Specialist for your case that is experience in court cases, cost about £400 - £500 ?.

If you have Legal Aid, they will fund the Specialist Report. After all, the NHS Specialist will charge the same anyway. Also, your NHS Specialist will no doubt not have the experience in court cases, or a title, that could compare to the Expert Witness the other side will hire.

When it comes to evidence, the court will be influenced more by the Expert Witness with the highest qualifications.

In no way should an NHS Specialist, that does not want to be involved in a court case, document his opinion on the connection between your illness and your work. They should concentrate only on documenting fact. They should not try to influence, in any way, the specialist that will be creating a report for your court case.

If you suspect an NHS doctor of having added inaccurate evidence in your medical files, you can apply for a copy of your medical files through the Freedom of Information Act. Your GP or Hospital may charge you for these documents. You will be informed of the fee, if any, after your application has been received.

If your Solicitor believes you have a good claim and you may qualify for Legal Aid, the Solicitor will apply for Legal Aid for you.

The Insurers of your Employers will normally request you undergo an examination by the Specialist representing them. You need to be aware this Specialist is under preasure to create a report that could prevent your claim from succeeding. If he produced a report in your favour, he would by lucky to be hired by that firm again. Your Solicitor will advise if you should attend such an examination or not.

When you receive a copy of that Specialist report, along with the list of instructions the Solicitors hiring him to report on, you should check to see if it contains any inaccuracies, or, does not answer clearly what they have been asked to report on. If it does, demand those inaccuracies are rectified as soon as possible.

Most of these cases never reach court so do not rely on those inaccuracies being rectified in court. Those inaccuracies could lead to the case not reaching court. See the complaints about Doctors on this website to see what can happen.

If your Solicitor states you will not qualify for Legal Aid, you should then be aware, that to continue with the case, would no doubt be a costly affair.

Your claim is actually against the Insurers of your Employers. These Insurers are known to deliberately drag the case out as they know the Claimant is likely to run out of funds to finance the case. Many people have invested many thousands of pounds in Civil Claims only to end up running out of funds and having to close the case.

Some Solicitors, if they think you have a strong case, will take your case on in a No Win No Fee basis. You can find many of these Solicitors advertising on the Internet. If these firms refuse to take on your case, it means your case has little chance of success.

Solicitors that take on Legal Aid cases can be found on the website www.slab.org.uk under (find your nearest solicitor).