Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department is making on identifying the most effective ways of addressing the root causes of the rising costs of indemnity for GPs.

Over the summer of 2016, the Department and NHS England established the General Practice Indemnity Review 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.

Following that review, the Department and NHS England committed to further work to address the growing cost of claims in relation to clinical negligence claims.

This work has now been incorporated into the Department’s core business. Officials have been working with stakeholders including the Medical Defence Organisations, NHS Litigation Authority and Ministry of Justice to understand and address the root causes of rising indemnity costs – which are similar in both primary and secondary care.

The Department is considering a number of policy options to address rising costs, one of which is a Fixed Recoverable Costs Scheme that would limit recoverable legal costs in clinical negligence claims. A consultation on this measure will be launched shortly.

Work on other policy options will continue over the next year.