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Rising medical damages awards are ‘main barrier’ to strengthening primary care

The rising sums being awarded in medical damages cases are one of the main barriers to improving GP services according to Rosamond Roughton, NHS England’s Director of Commissioning.

Ms. Roughton said: “It is certainly one of the main things that I can see as a barrier. The rise in indemnity costs is not being driven predominantly by the rise in the number of claims. It is not linked to general practice or quality. The rise in the damages being awarded by the courts is an important thing to be clear about.”

Speaking in front of delegates at the 2016 Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester, Ms. Roughton continued:  “It is really for Government in the longer term to ask “what does this mean?” and look at the way the judicial system operates because fundamentally that’s the only way we will begin to manage these costs in a sensible way.

“Scotland does not have the same issues that England has and that is a reflection of the different basis of law that Scotland has.”

The rising costs of indemnity is putting off many GPs from working out-of-hours shifts as Medical Defence Organisations also increase the cost of cover for new, less established ways of working. However, these approaches are crucial to delivering the new models of care that will ensure the long term future of primary care services.

Nigel Watson, a New Forest GP and Chief Executive of a local medical committee in Wessex was also on the discussion panel. He said: “To put it in context, a full time GP will spend between 12 to 15 thousand pounds a year on indemnity. Where we have new models of care and employed practice as part of a trust indemnity scheme, that drops to a thousand pounds.

“A lot of GPs find that quite attractive but there are quite a lot of GPs who work part time who say they could do more sessions but if they’re going to have to pay three or four thousand pounds per session, what is the incentive to do it?”

In April NHS England launched its General Practice Forward View, outlining steps it is taking to help GPs cope with the rising costs of indemnity cover.

Channel website: https://www.england.nhs.uk/

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