Supervision Policy

Medico-Legal Supervision

 

The Purpose and Nature of Supervision

Consultation or supervision is acknowledged to be:

an essential part of good practice as a psychologist. There is no legal requirement for supervision, although it is considered an ethical and professional expectation to engage in appropriate consultation in order to support effective practice. Provision of this is therefore an important underpinning to good quality service delivery. The Society’s position is, for safe and effective practice in clinical and mental health settings, or with other vulnerable groups, supervision is a requirement of practice.

(BPS, 2017)

However, within medico-legal work, the use of supervision is constrained. The British Psychological Society (BPS) notes that Experts are not expected to require peer supervision in their opinion with regards a particular case.

This notwithstanding, it is also acknowledged by the BPS that: 

“Psychologists who lack experience in report preparation and the giving of evidence should not be intimidated by this. Courts and hearings recognise that all experts have to start somewhere and gain experience through training, supervision, and cumulative practice.”

(BPS, 2021)

Judge Cotter QC in David Pinkus v Direct Line Group. [2018] EWHC QB (2nd January 2018) notes that:

“Any expert who discusses the content of a proposed report in detail with another expert under a peer review arrangement must be extremely cautious if he or she thinks it is not appropriate to disclose the fact and extent of that arrangement. Indeed, I would go as far as to say the circumstances in which he or she cannot properly do so must be very limited indeed”

The BPS also observes:

“Psychologists need to remain aware that many legal proceedings are protected with respect to disclosure, family proceedings in particular, and thus supervision should be obtained in the operation of the legal process and how opinion ought to be provided on psychological matters. Experts are not expected to require supervision of their opinion; indeed, if a psychologist believes that they need this, then they should question whether they are ready for expert or professional witness work.”

“If a psychologist is not experienced in preparing evidence for legal purposes, they are responsible for obtaining the appropriate advice, supervision, and mentoring in the preparation of the report and for the first court appearance. It is partly in this way that expertise is developed. The individual psychologist being called to provide evidence is responsible for securing appropriate support and training necessary to ensure professional standards are met in relation to the court they are serving”.

What Medico-legal Supervision can offer

Medico-legal supervision may cover a variety of areas, including but not limited to :

• Knowledge and skill, particularly issues relating to the legal process
• Legal and civil procedure rules
• A reflective space and an opportunity to “debrief”
• Identification (and collaborative exploration of these if appropriate) of a supervisee’s thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and values and the potential impact of these on medico-legal work and professional behaviour
• Discussion of research evidence, recent papers, CPD events and other training opportunities
• Reading of “dummy” reports or closed cases for feedback.
• Checking a report for quality control purposes (for example, to ensure all pertinent issues are addressed, check for clarity, internal consistency and completeness). If this has occurred, the report should be anonymised to ensure confidentiality, and the supervisee should add a statement in their report that reflects that this has occurred (see section : The Responsibilities of the Supervisee).
• Discussion of issues such as diagnosis, phrasing of opinion, consideration of attribution, treatment and vulnerability 
  • However, it is very important that these discussions are not case specific (i.e. discussing an active case) but should be related to a closed case, hypothetical or general, or reflective of wider current practice in this field.

Supervision Methods

The supervisor approach is agreed by the supervisee and supervisor in their first discussion, and the approach is reviewed regularly.  At the beginning of each supervision session, the structure and purpose of that session is agreed.

Records of the supervision may be kept by the supervisee. The supervisor will not, as a matter of course, keep records of the supervision sessions other than as an aide-memoir for tasks that may need to be undertaken following the session (emailing the supervisee specific papers, CPD event, or documents, for example).

The methods and content of supervision within a medico-legal setting might include:

• Discussion about the evidence-base related to diagnosis, prognosis and treatment recommendations (not case specific, but general discussion of recent publications and clinical guidelines)
• Review of CPR rules and any recent judgements or updates relating to Civil Procedure
• Case presentations (of hypothetical or closed cases)
• Review of reports to check consistency, clarity and adherence to CPR rules (not to offer assistance with forming an opinion)
• Rehearsal of a medico-legal interview
• Review of risk and therapist/client safety
• Identification of supervisee’s thoughts, attitudes, beliefs with exploration of the impact of these on medico legal work and professional behaviour

The Responsibilities of the Supervisee

Legal proceedings are protected with regards to disclosure and thus if you feel that supervision is required in relation to issues of opinion, you should, first and foremost, ensure you are not practicing outside your area of expertise and competence. You should always turn down a case if it is outside your area of expertise, or not stray in your opinion into areas outside your expertise.

If you are unsure about whether you should be seeking supervision on a particular matter, you must speak to your instructing party and ask for their advice. Alternatively, you can seek advice from the court.

If you have sought supervision on your opinion for a particular case, you should include this within the report, and state the details of this supervision. Any such discussion is not privileged and may be requested by the defendant or claimant solicitors. Transparency is essential.

If you have had your report checked by a supervisor, for example for accuracy, clarity, internal consistency, completeness and relevance to the issues, you should add a statement within your report that reads: 

“This report has been read by another expert for quality control purposes to ensure that all pertinent issues have been addressed. I declare that I am the only one to have undertaken the assessment and the opinions are my own.”

Non-Medico-Legal Supervision

Supervision for other areas of psychological work that fall outside medico-legal work is also offered. Sessions to cover more than one area of work can be scheduled, but please let us know what areas of work you are hoping to discuss when booking.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you are registered with the appropriate regulatory body and have current professional liability insurance.

If there are any challenges to your registration please bring this to supervision for discussion and support.

Frequency and Modes of Supervision

Frequency of supervision is at the discretion of the supervisee. Supervision may be arranged to be at a regular time on a monthly, or bi-monthly basis. Alternatively, the supervisee arrange supervision on an “ad hoc” basis.

Supervision may take place by video, via email, or by telephone.

Payment for Supervision

Supervision with Dr Newns is charged at £104+VAT per hour. Payment is made ahead of the supervision via Kajabi. The supervision is not confirmed until payment has been received and we reserve the right to cancel a supervision if payment has not been received.

If you require Dr Newns to review a report ahead of the supervision, this should be emailed to [email protected] at least 48 working hours ahead of the supervision. The time taken to review this report will be invoiced separately following the supervision.

If the supervision is subsequently cancelled for any reason, a refund will be made, providing at least 48 working hours of the cancellation is given.

References

The British Psychological Society, 2017, Practice Guidelines

The British Psychological Society, 2021, Psychologists as Expert Witnesses: Guidelines  

Details of the “Pinkus” case

 

Version 1-5 Dated 04/03/2025