Traditional Medical Defence Organisations

There are numerous gaps in the support provided by traditional Medical Defence Organisations (MDOs) in UK –

1. they no longer support all cases going before the GMC or GDC; they decline support in cases where in their judgement the matter had arisen from “personal conduct”.
2. In the cases that are likely to progress to the GMC but have not yet been referred, they tend not get involved until the referral has been made and the GMC has opened investigation, denying support and guidance to members in respect of potential remediation.
3. The traditional MDOs do not defend employment rights, none support cases of discrimination, victimisation for whistle blowing or unfair dismissal and none lend support in employers’ internal disciplinary where the allegations are non-clinical.
4. The traditional MDOs do not provide support in training matters.

Because of this ‘pick and choose’ approach, members of traditional MDOs are left abandoned when they are most vulnerable.

An unscrupulous employer may exploit this by rehashing allegations in ways that can be labelled as personal conduct, knowing that traditional MDOs will pull out and the practitioners will be left at their mercy.

The trainers may behave with impunity because they know that MDOs will not provide support in training matters.

In employment and training matters, traditional MDO members are abandoned to Trade Unions (TU) support. While TUs are competent in providing advice and support in relation to entitlements and benefits in employment, expenses, pay scales, leave arrangements, career progression, ethical advice etc, they are not geared up to providing robust defence where clinical issues are concerned.

The standard of defence provided by traditional MDOs in employment and training issues is therefore seriously deficient.

The traditional MDOs do not pursue employment rights. This is abandoned in the hands of the Trade Unions but they also rarely take forward cases of discrimination, almost never seek High Court injunction against employers and when they do take cases to employment tribunals, it is usually for matters other than discrimination and in such cases the representation is often by non-lawyers.

As most of the GMC cases that end up progressing to Fitness to Practise hearings start from employment, it is obvious why all MDOs should take disputes arising from employment seriously rather than casually, as is done by traditional MDOs.

The gaps in the defence available from traditional sources (MDOs and TUs working independently) is potentially very serious and can leave practitioners seriously vulnerable at a time when they are in greatest need of support.

It is for these reason that DDPU aims to provide seamless defence and therefore the seamless defence model of HCSA-DDPU.