Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2016 to Question 45660, for what reasons the cost of indemnity is rising for GPs.

Over summer 2016, the General Practice Indemnity Review was established as a short-term, focussed piece of work which sought to examine the extent of inflation in General Practitioner (GP) indemnity, the root causes of this, and to identify proposals for improving the situation.

Its findings are available on the NHS England website:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/gp-indemnity-rev-summary.pdf

The increases in costs experienced by GPs mainly reflect the fact that the amount of damages being awarded to victims of clinical negligence is increasing year on year, and the volumes of claims is also rising.

The size of damages awarded by the courts have increased year on year, and this needs to be reflected in the amount GPs pay for their indemnity. GPs are also seeing a higher volume of patients than previously, and evidence suggests that patient behaviour has undergone a significant change in recent years, in a way that may lead to an increase in the likelihood of a claim arising.

It is clear that there has been no material deterioration in the quality and safety standards within primary care in recent years, so it is unlikely that the increase in indemnity costs is reflective of the safety of care being provided.