State-Backed Medical Indemnity Scheme: What Does It Mean for Your GPs?

With the implementation of the new state-backed medical indemnity scheme from 1 April 2019, your GPs are probably anticipating significantly lower insurance costs. Find out how this will affect your medical indemnity cover.

Yes. The new scheme will only cover GPs for work undertaken by NHS contracted medical services, so this means that medical indemnity cover will still be required for:

• Any private or fee-paying work undertaken

• GMC proceedings

• Patient complaints

• Coroners’ cases

• Criminal investigations

• Good Samaritan Acts

• Disciplinaries

Yes. The state-backed scheme is not going to provide run-off cover and to ensure your GPs are fully protected, those with a claims-paid or claims-made indemnity policy will need to purchase cover separately themselves should they decide to move to the state-backed scheme.

Your GPs will need to ensure that when purchasing a medical indemnity policy on a reduced cover basis that they make themselves fully aware of the terms under which it is being offered, taking into consideration how they will cover themselves after the period of cover has expired and the cost of run-off cover.

It is essential GPs have the appropriate medical indemnity cover in line with the GMC professional regulatory requirements to enable them to practice.

In response to the limitations of the state-backed medical indemnity insurance policy, we are launching Medical Indemnity Plus, which will provide claims-made protection for your GPs with cover for:

• Professional duties whilst attending a Good Samaritan Act

• Legal expenses

For more details of what is covered by our medical indemnity insurance and the exclusions, please call our specialist advisers on 0330 123 5140 who will be happy to help you.

Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on a non-specific basis, we cannot assume legal responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems, we recommend that professional advice be sought.