The RTA Portal Stage 2 Settlement Pack: what it requires for medical records costs

For fee-earners running RTA Portal claims · ~5 min read · quotes from the official Protocol

What the Settlement Pack must contain

Paragraph 7.32 of the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents sets out what the Stage 2 Settlement Pack must comprise, including:

• a medical report or reports;
• evidence of disbursements (for example the cost of any medical report);
• any medical records or photographs served with the medical reports.

The invoice requirement most people don't notice

Paragraph 7.32(4A) goes further for soft tissue injury claims specifically:

"...the invoice for the cost of obtaining the fixed cost medical report and any invoice for the cost of obtaining medical records..."

Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents, para 7.32(4A)

Not just the report, and not just the records — the invoice for obtaining them. The cost of getting the records is itself a disbursement in the claim, itemised and included in the pack for the other side to see.

Why the invoice itself matters

Because that cost is disclosed as a line item, it gets the same scrutiny as any other disbursement. A large, opaque agency invoice — priced by the hour, with the actual work not broken down — is harder to justify in a low-value claim than a small, clearly itemised charge per document produced. On a claim where the whole point of the fixed-costs regime is proportionality, a disbursement that looks disproportionate to the claim's value invites exactly the scrutiny paragraph 7.32 is built to allow.

What this means in practice

• Keep the records cost itemised and modest — a per-document charge is simpler to justify in a Settlement Pack than an hourly bill with no clear ceiling. See our cost comparison for what traditional providers typically charge.
• The invoice has to actually exist and be attachable — build the cost of obtaining records into your process as a documented, invoiced step, not an informal internal cost.
• This sits alongside, not instead of, good record organisation — the records themselves still need to support the medical report; see what a good chronology includes.

Quotations are from the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents as published on justice.gov.uk; check the current text directly for any matter where precise compliance matters. General information for legal professionals, not legal or costs advice.