MEET OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST EXPERT WITNESS HEATHER BATEY
Please meet Heather Batey, an experienced Occupational Therapist and the latest member to join our team of expert witnesses. Heather's professional career spans nearly forty years in neurorehabilitation and personal injury, within the Health Service, Social Services and the Independent Sector.
Heather is highly experienced in assessing, treating and providing clinical guidance to stakeholders on patients suffering from head trauma (often part of a poly trauma accident), concussion, severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and FND. Her expert reports have focused on neuro-occupational therapy assessments and rehabilitation advice for both claimant and defendant solicitors.
EARLY LIFE
Heather was born and raised, along with her siblings, on a farm on the rural west coast of Scotland. Farming is in her blood, as her dad was a farmer who came from a long line of farmers.
Heather is one of three children. Her sister works for the Nuffield Foundation as an RGN Sister, and her mum was an infectious disease nurse. Her brother, however, bucked the farming and nursing trends by becoming an Equity partner in a law firm.
Heather had a great childhood and rural upbringing on her parents' mixed arable, dairy and beef farm, attending the local schools, with the Young Farmers forming the bedrock of her social life. Heather was the proud owner of a tractor license before she could drive a car!
In the school holidays, the three siblings would swap one farm for another as they headed to their grandmother’s farm near Aberdeen for a ‘busman’s holiday.’ It all seemed perfectly normal at the time, and Heather loved every second of it!
After leaving high school, Heather headed to university in Aberdeen to train as an Occupational Therapist, choosing occupational therapy as she wanted to work in clinical practice that helps strategise the treatment of the whole person in a holistic way to help that person return to occupational performance in their working life, their personal life, or by returning them to the recreational activities they did before their long-term illness or trauma.
A CAREER AS AN OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST
After graduating from Aberdeen in 1989, Heather began a two-year clinical rotation at Harrogate District Hospital. The rotation was entirely ward and clinic-based in orthopaedics, learning disabilities, in a psychiatric day hospital and on medical and neurological wards, working with patients with degenerative disorders, including MS and MND, and catastrophic brain injury and trauma.
Upon completing her rotation, Heather felt she needed to gain OT knowledge and experience in a community setting, as she had only ever experienced hospital and clinical ward-based roles. She left the NHS and moved to Leeds to work for Seacroft Social Services as a Community Occupational Therapist. This was a completely different environment to work in. As Heather explains,
“Working in the community means that you are working on the client's turf and are a guest in their house. This needs a different approach, one that is respectful of their situation as you are in their home, not in a clinic, so you need to adapt the way you work accordingly.”
A NEW CHALLENGE BECKONED
In 1990, towards the end of her time at Seacroft, Heather was approached to take on a more senior position at Leeds Hospital to cover maternity leave. She found herself involved in a Regional Rehabilitation Unit (RRU) research project, ‘Brain Injury Follow-up in the Community’, publishing several papers on her research.
In 1992, Leeds Hospital applied for Government funding to develop the ‘Leeds Head Injury Team.’ Only 12 teams in the UK were successful, and Leeds was one of them.
Heather was approached to join the team of four and was successfully appointed as their Occupational Therapist, bringing with her neurological and community experience, the perfect combination of skills. It was a baptism of fire as the team of four embarked on their three-month research project from scratch with just four desks, four computers and not much else.
Month one was research-based, setting up the service and determining which tools and models to utilise. During the second month, Heather toured the UK, identifying what works within brain injury services and what doesn't - the third and final month combined a trip to Denmark to see how the brain injury units there were set up and run, and time spent in Israel in an acute brain trauma unit, including gunshot injuries, looking at how that was run. Heather and the team developed the service from 1990 to 1994 until the admission criteria changed. During her time with the Leeds Head Injury Team, Heather also managed to study for her Bachelor of Health Science (Hons) degree.
This was a crossroads moment for Heather. Several lawyers had already approached her to do medico-legal work, so she decided the time was right to leave to set up her own business, Reach Personal Injury Services Ltd, specialising in providing a National Home-Based Rehabilitation Service for both adults and children covering rehabilitation assessments and treatment for head trauma, concussion, moderate/severe traumatic brain injury and also Functional Neurological Disorder (FND).
A NEW CHAPTER AS A BUSINESS OWNER
Heather successfully co-ran (as MD) Reach with her business partner until she sold it in 2020, her business partner having retired fifteen years earlier. At the time of selling the business, Heather had 100 clinicians and an award-winning national-level business that was a pioneer in its field.
Heather found the process of selling the business to be an interesting one. As part of the agreement, she was committed to staying for twelve months, but due to her love of clinical development, she chose to stay on longer, taking on the role of Clinical Services Director.
In this role, Heather served as the leading clinical figure within the business’s senior management team, embodying the company's commitment to excellence in brain injury and neurological rehabilitation. Her role encompassed the development and oversight of clinical services, ensuring they met the highest standards of practice and innovation.
Heather was integral to the strategic direction and operational excellence of the clinical aspects of the business, in particular assessing, treating and providing clinical guidance to stakeholders on patients suffering from head trauma (often part of a poly trauma accident), concussion, severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and FND. Her expert reports have focused on neuro-occupational therapy assessments and rehabilitation advice for both claimant and defendant solicitors.
Heather finally left her permanent role with Reach in September 2025. As she says, “It felt like the right time to start a new chapter and allow space for other things in my life.”
After taking the whole of October 2025 off, Heather is heading back to Reach as an Associate Consultant on a part-time basis, offering her expertise and training to a variety of organisations.
BECOMING A JJ&A EXPERT WITNESS
Working part-time leaves enough space for expert witness work, which is something Heather was keen to revisit. So, when a case manager she knew mentioned Jane James and Associates, Heather decided to reach out for a conversation, especially since she had known Jane for several years and was familiar with JJ&A's reputation in the industry. Several things resonated with Heather about working with JJ&A, as she explains:
“Firstly, they are a privately owned family business, which really appealed to me. Secondly, they are incredibly supportive. They have been brilliant from the start and have already invested so many hours of their time in me, and that's before I've even written my first report! We share many of the same values, which is important in a small company. I am now really keen to receive my first instruction and get going!”
IN HER SPARE TIME
Heather lives by the sea in Craster, Northumberland. She has three grown-up boys and a young granddaughter whom she loves to spend time with. In her spare time, Heather is a member of a sea rowing club, cycles regularly (having ridden from London to Paris this year for charity), travels, spends time with her boys and especially enjoys climbing the Munros in Scotland. As Heather says,
“It's definitely a time to enjoy life, and I’m looking forward to new opportunities, including spending time in Italy next year, travelling and learning the language.”
Heather is a great supporter of many charities, including the Calvert Trust, where she served as a trustee for seven years until 2025; Brain Box, where she also served as a trustee; and the Northern Acquired Brain Injury Forum (NABIF), of which she is chair.
She also publishes and lectures (nationally and internationally) on FND and clinical aspects of TBI and concussion.
Heather works for Jane James & Associates as an Independent Expert Witness, taking instructions from both Claimant and Defendant firms for full care reports, aids and equipment reports and neurorehabilitation reports.
You can learn more about Heather in the short article below and find her expert profile on our website: https://janejamesandassociates.co.uk/content/?contentID=2171
