Medico-legal expert in pain medicine
Dr Karen H Simpson
MBChB FRCA FFPMRCA FEWI (Cert) · Consultant in Pain Medicine, Leeds
Independent expert evidence on chronic pain for personal injury and clinical negligence claims, from a founding Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine with about 35 years of medico-legal practice.
Dr Simpson was a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals for nearly 30 years and now devotes her practice to medico-legal work. She prepares around 250 reports and joint statements a year, and accepts instructions from claimants, defendants and as a single joint expert.
Her reports comply with CPR Part 35, its Practice Direction and the CJC Guidance for the Instruction of Experts. She is a Certified Fellow of the Expert Witness Institute and holds the Cardiff University Bond Solon Civil Expert Certificate.
At a glance
- Around 250 a year
- Reports and joint statements
- About 35 years
- Medico-legal practice
- UK and Ireland
- Jurisdictions reported in
- Claimant, defendant, SJE
- Instructions accepted
- GMC registered and licensed
- Revalidated, with annual appraisal
- Patrick Wall Medal 2025
- The Faculty of Pain Medicine’s highest lectureship
Background
Dr Simpson qualified MBChB from the University of Leeds in 1979, was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists in 1983 and completed higher specialist training in anaesthesia and pain medicine in 1986. In 2008 she was admitted as a Founding Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine, having helped to establish the Faculty.
From 1987 until 2016 she was a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, working solely in pain medicine for the last decade of that time. The Leeds Pain Service is a tertiary referral centre for complex pain and a national centre for neuromodulation, including spinal cord stimulation and spinal drug delivery. She is now an Honorary Consultant at Leeds Teaching Hospitals and a Senior Clinical Lecturer in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds.
She has held senior national roles in pain medicine with responsibility for education and standards, including Honorary Secretary of the British Pain Society, first Vice Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine and Chairman of the Faculty’s Court of Examiners. In December 2025 the Faculty awarded her the Patrick Wall Medal, its highest lectureship, given to senior clinicians who have advanced the science or art of pain medicine; her Patrick Wall Lecture was titled “From Clinic to Court: Where Science and Law Meet”. Research, publications and teaching