Patients of doctors Ewart Brown and Mahesh Reddy will seek permission next week to appeal a judge’s order that would allow their medical files to be reviewed by independent experts overseas.

The 150 patients, represented by law firm Chancery Legal, had their health records seized, along with those of 115 other people, during police raids on two clinics owned by Dr Brown, a former premier, in February 2017.

Detectives took the documents as part of an investigation into allegations that Bermuda Healthcare Services in Paget and the Brown-Darrell Clinic in Smith’s ordered unnecessary diagnostic imaging scans for patients to boost profits.

The files were later sealed on the orders of a judge after civil proceedings were brought against the Bermuda Police Service by Dr Reddy and the clinics.

The 150 patients got permission in November to intervene in the case.

Puisne Judge Shade Subair Williams ordered last week that the records of 75 of the patients represented by Chancery Legal would be scanned and sent abroad to two doctors in Britain and the United States, after any personal information was removed.

But the patients represented by Chancery Legal insisted they did not want their files to be reviewed to see if they were over-tested and their British lawyer Jerome Lynch QC told last Thursday’s hearing they want the records back.

Lawyer Mark Pettingill, also representing the patients, told Mrs Justice Subair Williams during a Supreme Court hearing yesterday that he would be applying for leave to appeal her decision.

Mr Pettingill added that there was “merit in the issues to be heard”.

He asked for the order to be temporarily halted until he had presented his arguments to the court.

Mark Diel, for the police service, gave an undertaking that his clients would not do anything with the files as long as the matter was dealt with “on an expedited basis” by the court.

Mrs Justice Subair Williams agreed to hear Mr Pettingill’s application on Tuesday.

A later hearing, for the court to hear submissions from lawyer Delroy Duncan, on behalf of Dr Reddy and the clinics, about how the non-medical files taken during the raids will be handled by police, was scheduled for March 11.