CPR Part 35 · Clinical negligence & personal injury
Thoracic surgical evidence from a surgeon still doing the operations
I am a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. I operate every week. My opinions on what a reasonable body of thoracic surgeons would have done are drawn from current practice, not from recollection of how the operation was performed when I trained.
- Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
- Instructed by claimant, defendant & jointly
- Reports returned to an agreed timetable
- Bond Solon trained expert witness
Initial discussion
Before you instruct
Tell me about the case before anything is committed to paper. An initial discussion carries no charge and no obligation, and it is usually enough to establish three things: whether the issues fall within thoracic surgery, whether the clinical questions are ones on which I can properly assist, and whether an expert report from a thoracic surgeon is likely to be the right evidence at this stage.
If the issues fall outside my field, I will say so and tell you which specialty you actually need. Several thoracic claims turn on a radiological or oncological question and are better answered in that order.
The report standard
The standard I work to
Expert reports fail for predictable reasons, and most of them are failures of drafting rather than of medicine: a question in the letter of instruction left unanswered, a conclusion with no reasoning behind it, a chronology that does not match the disclosed records.
I publish the checklist I work through before a report leaves my desk, because a solicitor choosing an expert has no way of knowing how a report will be written until it arrives, and because a published standard can be held against me.
Report review checklist
- Every question in the letter of instruction is answered, and can be found
- The Part 35 declaration and statement of truth are correct and complete
- The chronology matches the disclosed records
- Every conclusion is traceable to the reasoning behind it
- The range of opinion is addressed wherever one exists
- The report is paginated and structured for a court bundle
Run on every report before release. Conclusions are never changed.
Areas of work
Where I can help
Instructed across clinical negligence, personal injury and the criminal courts. By region of the chest:
Lung & mediastinum
Pleura
Chest wall & trauma
How to instruct
Four steps from enquiry to report
The clock starts at day 0 — when your records arrive. Everything before that is free of charge.
| No. | Step | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Call or emailAn initial discussion on whether the case falls within my expertise. No charge. |
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| 2 |
Instruction & recordsYou send the letter of instruction and the records. I confirm the fee and a delivery date in writing before any work begins. |
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| 3 |
Examination, if requiredIn London, at a venue near the claimant, by home visit, or remotely where physical examination is not material to the opinion. |
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| 4 |
ReportDelivered to the timetable agreed at the point of instruction. |
Fees are payable regardless of the outcome and are never contingent. Full turnaround figures are on the fee schedule.
Fees
The figure agreed is the figure invoiced
You are given a fee in writing before you instruct. This is what the fee note looks like when the report is delivered.
The last line equals the first. Additions and adjustments are agreed in advance, or they do not appear.
Illustrative only. Real figures are on the fee schedule.
I publish my rates, so you know what a report costs before you instruct. The figure is fixed at that point and put in writing.
It does not drift. Nothing is added to the invoice unless the scope changed and we discussed it first — and then you see the new figure before the work starts.
Fees are payable regardless of the outcome of the claim. I do not act on any conditional or contingent basis, in any form.
About
Mr Marco Scarci
MD(Hons) · FRCS(Eng) · FCCP · FACS · FEBTS
I am a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. I operate every week. My opinions are grounded in the practice of a surgeon still doing the operations in question, not in recollection of how they used to be done.
I have provided expert evidence for 15 years, with over 300 reports produced to date, and produce approximately four to five reports a month — a deliberate limit. It keeps turnaround short and keeps the medico-legal work from displacing the clinical practice that gives the opinions their weight.
GMC registration 6159768
The administration of my medicolegal practice is provided under contract by Lexmed, an independent medicolegal services company, which has no involvement in the substance of any opinion I give.
Who instructs me
What instructing solicitors say
Instructed by claimant firms, defendant panels and jointly.
Every question in our letter of instruction was answered, and answered where we could find it. The report went through the joint statement without a single change.
The draft arrived on the date he gave us, paginated for the bundle, and the invoice matched the figure quoted at instruction.
On the fifteen-minute call he told us the claim would not run. That candour saved our client a full report and the better part of two months.
Discuss a case
Tell me about the case
Fifteen minutes, no charge, no obligation. If I am not the right expert, I will say so on the call.