MDU responds to concerns about GP indemnity costs
Dr Matthew Lee, MDU professional services director has responded ahead of today's parliamentary debate on GP indemnity.
GPs are seeing unsustainable increases in the costs of their indemnity because clinical negligence inflation - the number and value of claims - has been running at over 10% for several years. What was already a significant problem has, at a stroke, been made substantially worse for GPs bearing rising indemnity costs because of the lowering of the discount rate. This is a catastrophic situation which could threaten GPs’ ability to continue to practise.
The discount rate is the mechanism used by the courts to adjust large compensation payments to take account of future investment returns. The rate change increases the costs of compensation awards dramatically and immediately for known claims which have already been reported but not yet settled. It also has retrospective effect on incidents from past years where the claim is not yet reported.
Reducing the rate, as the Lord Chancellor has done, to minus 0.75% adds billions to the cost of claims against the NHS. In his budget statement, the Chancellor announced he had set aside £5.9 billion across the forecast period to protect the NHS from the effects of the changed personal injury discount rate.
The MDU is working with the Department of Health and NHS England to find a solution to ensure MDU GP members can continue to provide high-quality clinical care to their patients without the fear that they will not be able to afford increasing indemnity costs.
The reduction in the discount rate has made an already grave situation much worse and something must be done to protect GPs from the impact of this government decision and effectively address ongoing claims inflation. We are campaigning for legal reform for fair compensation. Details are on our website.
