Dr Robert Baylis is a Consultant in Musculoskeletal and Pain Medicine at Portsmouth University Hospitals NHS Trust, where he has held consultant status since 1998. He provides independent, court-compliant expert witness evidence through Pain Expert across personal injury and clinical negligence claims.
Dr Robert Baylis has been Consultant in Pain Medicine at Portsmouth University Hospitals NHS Trust since 1998, where he specialises in evidence-based, multi-disciplinary pain management. Portsmouth’s pain service provides specialist provision to patients across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, with tertiary integration with Southampton University Hospitals — a clinical environment that has shaped a broad and methodologically rigorous approach to complex chronic pain.
His clinical framework is built on a biopsychosocial model of assessment, with particular interest in the interaction between primary and secondary pain conditions, somatic symptom disorders, and functional neurological disorders. He has developed specialist expertise in central sensitisation syndromes — including complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) — and in the relationship between neurodivergence (ADHD and autism) and chronic pain and disability. This cross-disciplinary perspective is well established in his clinical practice and is directly relevant to cases where the aetiology of pain and its functional consequences are contested.
Dr Robert Baylis treats the full range of chronic pain presentations: chronic primary pain including CRPS and fibromyalgia, chronic post-surgical and post-traumatic pain, chronic cervical and lumbar spine pain, neuropathic, nociceptive and nociplastic pain, and chronic secondary musculoskeletal pain. He also delivers interventional pain therapies including neuro-ablation, and holds an NHS provider contract for interventional pain management to West Sussex Primary Care Trust.
His academic formation includes a Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FRCA, 1994), Founder Fellowship of the Faculty of Pain Medicine (FFPMRCA, 1998), and an MSc in Pain Medicine from the University of Wales (2000). He teaches postgraduate students from the University of Portsmouth and undergraduates from Southampton Medical School. He has presented to medical and legal audiences on CRPS, the interface between pain medicine and psychiatry, and pain and neurodiversity — including at Pain Expert’s own annual medicolegal conference and the Wessex Legal Forum.
Dr Robert Baylis prepares two to four medico-legal reports per month, with a claimant/defendant/joint ratio of 70:20:10. He has provided oral expert evidence in court on five occasions, including in the Court of New South Wales, Australia. He conducts medico-legal examinations from consulting rooms at the Watermill Clinic in Wickham, Prema Health in Portsmouth, and Nuffield Hospitals in Chichester and Winchester, with further appointments available in London (10 Harley Street), Bournemouth, Exeter, and Bristol by arrangement.
Dr Robert Baylis’s recent Insights article, When Pain Medicine and Psychiatry Meet: A Framework for Legal Professionals, examines how the ICD-11 diagnostic framework applies to complex presentations involving both chronic pain and psychiatric comorbidity.
Dr Robert Baylis’s recent Insights article, Masking and the Neurodivergent Pain Claimant: Why Presentation Isn’t Proof, examines how neurodivergent claimants process, experience and mask pain differently — and why appearance in a single consultation should never be read as the measure of disability.
Our chambers team will review your instruction, and connect you with the consultant pain expert. We’ll arrange a short call to agree scope, timelines, and fees from the outset – so the evidence is first-time-right and compliant with CPR Part 35.
Every enquiry is handled in confidence and in line with GDPR.
Our chambers team will review your instruction, and connect you with the consultant pain expert. We’ll arrange a short call to agree scope, timelines, and fees from the outset – so the evidence is first-time-right and compliant with CPR Part 35.
Every enquiry is handled in confidence and in line with GDPR.