The Injuries Resolution Board medical report: Form B and what your doctor records

The Injuries Resolution Board decides a claim on paper. There is no hearing and nobody gives evidence. That makes the medical report the most important document in the file: it is what the Board reads, what the respondent reads, and what the Personal Injuries Guidelines are applied to. This guide explains the Board's Medical Assessment Form, known as Form B, in the Board's own terms.

What Form B is

Form B is the Board's standard medical report form. The Board's making a claim page says a completed Medical Assessment Form from your treating doctor is one of the three things an application needs, with the fee and proof of identity. The form itself is on the Board's forms and guidance page. It belongs to the Board and is linked here, not reproduced.

The Board cannot begin an assessment without it, and under section 13 of the 2003 Act a copy goes to each respondent with the Formal Notice. So the respondent and its insurer read exactly what the Board reads.

Who completes it

Your treating doctor or your GP. The Board's page says "treating doctor", which usually means the GP who has seen you since the accident, or the hospital consultant where there was one. It should be someone who examined you, not someone who has only read your notes.

A doctor who has treated you for an injury usually knows the form; it has been in use since 2004. If your GP has not completed one before, the Board's forms page has the form and guidance notes.

What the doctor records

Form B asks the doctor for the facts a reader would need to place the injury in the Guidelines. Broadly, it covers:

The prognosis matters more than people expect. The Guidelines' brackets for the commonest injuries are set by recovery period. For a minor neck injury, for example, the Guidelines give one bracket for a substantially full recovery within six months, another within a year, and another within two years. The Board reads the recovery period from the medical report. Our guide on whiplash and neck injury brackets sets those brackets out as the Guidelines give them.

The fee, and recovering it

You pay the doctor for completing the form. The Board's FAQ says the reasonable cost of the treating doctor's report can be recovered as part of the award, alongside the €45 or €90 application fee. Keep the receipt and send it with your expenses; the Board's FAQ says records of expenses can follow the application.

"Reasonable" is the Board's word. The Board does not publish a fixed figure for what a doctor may charge.

The Board's own medical examination

The Board may arrange an independent medical examination where Form B does not give it enough to assess the claim, or where time has passed. The examination is with a doctor on the Board's own panel, there is no charge to you, and the report joins the file. The Board's FAQ describes this as part of the assessment, not as a second opinion you have to argue with.

If you are asked to attend, go. The Board assesses on the documents it has, and a missing examination leaves a gap in the file that the Board cannot fill with assumptions in your favour.

Timing: when to get the report done

The report has to exist before the application can be complete, and the application date is the date the two-year clock pauses under section 50. That pulls two ways. A report written too soon may give a prognosis that turns out to be wrong; a report delayed too long eats into the two years.

Most people have the form completed once the doctor can give a reasonable prognosis, and send updated medical evidence later if things change. The Board's FAQ allows further medical reports to be sent during the process. The guide on the time limit and the date of knowledge and the time-limit checker show how much of the two years is left.

Psychological injuries

Since the Personal Injuries Resolution Board Act 2022 commenced in 2023, the Board can assess a claim for psychological injury on its own, without a physical injury alongside. The Board's Annual Report 2025 release says 15% of the awards made in 2025 involved a psychological injury; the figure is dated on the figures register.

The Guidelines' psychiatric sections ask for a recognised diagnosis, so a report from a GP that records anxiety or low mood is a start but may not be enough on its own. A diagnosis from a psychiatrist or psychologist, with the Guidelines' considerations addressed (the effect on daily life and work, treatment, prognosis), is what the Board will be looking for. The guide on psychiatric injury and PTSD brackets covers the sections.

What not to ask the doctor to write

This part is short because the rule is short. Form B is the doctor's report, not yours.

• Do not ask the doctor to record symptoms you do not have, or to describe the ones you have as worse than they are. Section 25 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 makes giving false or misleading evidence in a personal injuries action an offence, and section 26 requires a court to dismiss an action founded on it unless that would cause injustice. The Board refers suspected fraud on. The guide on exaggerated and false claims states the law.
• Do not ask the doctor to say who was at fault. The Board assesses on the assumption that the respondent is fully liable, so the medical report has no part in liability, and a doctor's view on it carries no weight.
• Do not ask the doctor to put a figure on the claim. The Board applies the Guidelines to the medical facts; the doctor's job is the facts.

The Guidelines themselves carry a paragraph on soft-tissue injuries saying that "allegations of such injuries are easily made and not easily disproved", and that the courts and the Board scrutinise them with care. An exact, unembellished report is what serves a genuine claim best.

Further reports and the final picture

A claim is usually assessed when the medical picture is settled enough to give a prognosis, which the Board's FAQ calls medical finality. If your recovery is uncertain, the Board may wait for a further report, or arrange its own examination, which is one of the reasons assessments take about 9 months from the respondent's consent on the Board's own figures. The guide on how long a claim takes covers what lengthens the process.

Where the injury is serious and the prognosis will not be clear for a long time, the Board may decide the claim is not suited to assessment and issue an Authorisation. A solicitor would weigh the medical evidence at that point.

Where this leaves you

Form B is the document everything is built on: the respondent's decision to consent, the Board's figure, and your own decision at the end. Get it from the doctor who treated you, keep the receipt, and send further reports if the picture changes. The Board timeline planner shows where the report sits in the sequence and how the periods run once the application is complete.