Medical Protection Insurance for Trainees and Trust Indemnity Insurance

MEDICAL PROTECTION INSURANCE FOR TRAINEES
AND TRUST INDEMNITY INSURANCE      

The General Medical Council has powers under the Medical Act Amendment and Miscellaneous Amendments Order 2006 to make indemnity cover a condition of registration. The GMC is currently considering how best to implement this requirement. Trainees should already be aware of the necessity of such cover as paragraph 34 of Good Medical Practise states:-  

‘You must take out adequate insurance or professional indemnity cover for any part of your practice not covered by an employers indemnity scheme in your patients interests as well as your own’.  

The GMC is aware of the possibility that some doctors may not have adequate cover as this issue was raised at a meeting of the expert group on indemnity.  

In terms of specialist medical training, NHS indemnity applies only to the NHS care provided by a doctor in training under their contract of employment to a member body.  Where a doctor in training has opted out of the WTD (with the approval of their employer), NHS indemnity will still apply for the work that they carry out for the member body beyond the normal time restrictions.  

The Chief Executive of the NHS Litigation Authority (Stephen Walker) has written to NHS Chief Executives and Finance Directors to spell out the position in relation to the NHS indemnity scheme if a clinician worked in excess of the WTD limits, as follows:-  

‘Any activity carried out by clinicians which would be the subject of an indemnity if carried out during “allotted” hours will be treated no differently under our schemes because that work was being done outside those hours’.   

NHS bodies are vicariously liable for the acts and omissions to act of their employees carried out during the course of their employment. Those bodies should have indemnity arrangements in place to meet this liability. NHS indemnity is provided through the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST), a voluntary risk-pooling scheme with membership currently only available to prescribed NHS bodies.