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GPs demand Government reimburses their indemnity fees in full

GPs from the BMA have voted to demand the Government agrees to reimburse in full their indemnity fees in the face of crippling rises in premiums.

Backing a motion put by Cleveland LMC, delegates at the annual LMCs conference in Edinburgh called for direct reimbursement of full costs to individual GPs.

Proposing the motion on behalf of the Agenda Committe, Dr Rachel McMahon said the GPC had ‘done good work’ in securing the Government’s contribution to cover rises in indemnity costs over the next two years, but that this was insufficient and that sharing it out across practices was ‘inequitable’.

Dr McMahon said: ‘We would like to see a centralised reimbursement system, so every GP gets their fees covered directly.’

GPC workforce lead Dr Krishna Kasaraneni said securing full reimbursement as the BMA had for CQC fees in this year’s negotiations was ‘the only way’ to solve the problem.

Urging delegates to support the motion, Dr Kasaraneni said: ‘The point about complete reimbursement of costs is this is the only way this can be done.’

He added: ‘Unless we get an equivalent arrangement for indemnity reimbursement as we have with CQC we will struggle next year to keep our surgeries open.’

Motion – carried in full 

Conference, regarding medical indemnity for GPs:

(i) Welcomes the contribution towards rising costs recently in England

(ii) Believes that the contractual uplift to some practices in England has been insufficient to cover the actual rise in indemnity costs

(iii) Believes that direct reimbursement of direct costs would be preferable to reimbursement via practices based on list size

(iv) Insists on the negotiation of full reimbursement of all indemnity costs

(v) Demands that any future reimbursement schemes are extended to include all