How to cope with 'rocketing' indemnity premiums

The BMA has issued guidance about medical indemnity in a bid to help GPs cope with spiralling costs. The association has worked with the medical defence organisations to produce a report which outlines what exactly indemnity is, what options are available to GPs and why the cost of premiums is rocketing. The report also considers possible solutions, including indemnity premiums for GPs being covered by the NHS. It says the number of claims being made against doctors is rising every year, with an annual claims inflation of around 10 per cent and £5m pay-outs no longer being out of the ordinary. Peter Holden, a GP in Derbyshire and member of the BMA’s medico-legal committee, says: ‘It’s extremely expensive and the profession can’t support claims at this rate. 'We don’t earn enough any more to pay the premium to make the pay-outs people are demanding.’ Dr Holden adds: ‘If all the warning signs and symptoms came up in any disease process we could computerise the service and avoid risk, but they don’t. ‘My skill as a GP is to make a good working diagnosis with an incomplete data set in a resource-poor and increasingly challenged environment. 'It’s high risk and my job is to manage that risk. If we are managing risk we are going to be wrong at some point — that’s not negligence, that’s bad luck.’ The guidance also urges GPs to speak to their medical defence organisation to discuss thei...
Source: BMA News - Category: UK Health Source Type: news