29.09.17
MDU: £10m indemnity scheme boost welcome, but long-term fix needed
The Medical Defence Union (MDU) has welcomed NHS England’s commitment to strengthen out-of-hours (OOH) GP services during the upcoming winter period by making £10m available for indemnity costs for the third year running.
According to NHS England, an extra 80,000 GP sessions took place thanks to the scheme last year, and this year’s increased budget means even more OOH shifts are expected to be provided.
These measures were created to serve as a relief from the increasing cost of indemnity in the health sector, which can be a barrier to delivering patient care. The scheme helps to offset the additional indemnity premium for doctors who want to work extra sessions for their OOH providers.
Dr Arvind Madan, GP and NHS England director of primary care, said: “NHS England is taking practical advice to ensure rising indemnity costs don’t stand in the way of GPs being able to support their patients over winter, both during working hours and at evenings and weekends.”
The MDU’s professional services director, Dr Matthew Lee, who wrote about this issue in the latest edition of NHE, agreed that the scheme provides a “temporary respite” from indemnity costs for doctors working extra OOH sessions.
“But this can’t continue,” he added. “Medical inflation continues to spiral, made even worse by the discount rate drop and GPs just cannot afford to pay for indemnity. We urgently need a long-term solution.”
Dr Madan promised that further work is “underway” to develop a long-term answer to this issue.
This financial year’s winter indemnity scheme will run between 1 October and 2 April 2018. GPs who want to commit to working extra OOH sessions should agree to the sessional commitment with their OOH provider and check that these sessions are eligible to the included in the scheme.
Once confirmed, doctors can apply online to add these sessions to their MDU membership.
Earlier this month, the MDU revealed that morale amongst GPs was taking a serious hit due to the alarming rise in clinical negligence claims, which has already been recognised as a major issue for the NHS – although the National Audit Office doesn’t think current plans are enough to curb its growth.
Writing for the latest edition of NHE, Dr Lee argued that the problem can only be a resolved through “root and branch reform of the legal system,” including by repealing outdated clinical negligence law, introducing fixed legal costs and capping compensation for loss of future earnings.