The importance of professional protection

When launched, the new state-backed indemnity scheme for GPs in England and Wales will provide you with cover for clinical negligence claims arising from your NHS contracted work. What it won’t include is support with problems that arise from your professional practice, such as complaints, GMC inquiries, inquests and disciplinary proceedings. Below we look at the reasons why retaining professional protection for help with these challenges is so important.

Protecting your professional reputation

We know that when most GPs consider their indemnity needs, they often do so from the perspective of receiving a claim for compensation.  This is understandable as the potential financial cost of a clinical negligence claim is significant in comparison to the cost of dealing with a regulatory issue, complaint or inquest. However, the impact of these and other professional challenges should not be underestimated, which is why the BMA recently advocated for clinicians working in primary care to retain their MDO membership once the state-backed scheme launches.

Interestingly, whilst a full-time GP can expect to receive two clinical negligence claims over a typical career, they can also expect to receive nine complaints or professional challenges during the same period. Indeed, from October 2017 to September 2018, we helped a third of all UK based GP members with over 6,000 cases that arose from their professional practice.

Primarily, these were requests for assistance with complaints and support at inquests, as well as requests for advice. Also included was support with disciplinary matters and regulatory investigations, along with criminal and defamation cases.
It is this protection of your professional reputation that we will continue to offer support for as part of your membership when the state-backed scheme launches.

Valued support…tailored to meet your needs

In addition, if you do choose to retain your membership with us, then you can expect to pay considerably less for it. This is because removing or reducing the indemnity component of your membership will naturally reduce the overall cost of your membership subscription.

And, should you want to, you can even tailor your membership to include – at an additional cost – the right to request indemnity for claims arising from any private or fee-paying work you undertake.

We’ve got it in hand

Earlier this month we passed the one year anniversary of the announcement of state-backed indemnity for GPs and it is fair to say that many questions about the new scheme remain unanswered.

We appreciate that this lack of information can be disconcerting and unsettling, and we are pushing the Government to supply more information as a matter of urgency. 

Whilst you may feel frustrated at the lack of information to date about the state-backed scheme, you can be assured that when it does launch, we are ready to pick up where the new scheme ends and adapt your membership to meet your needs. 

Additional information about the state-backed scheme and the impact it will have on your membership can be found here.