THE GP EXODUS
One in three ready to quit over insurance fee hikes Soaring cost of NHS lawsuits to hit £2.6 bn
THE rocketing cost of medical negligence lawsuits is bringing Britain’s GP service to the brink of collapse, according to a shock new survey.
With some doctors facing increases in their personal insurance premiums of up to 50 per cent, the poll reveals that a third are seriously considering leaving medicine or taking early retirement because they cannot afford to stay.
The Government says it needs to recruit 5,000 new GPs by 2020 to cope with fast-rising workloads. But this year, the number of family doctors has been falling by about 100 a month.
Unlike hospital doctors, GPs are legally required to pay their own premiums, and some say they are spending a fifth of their pre-tax income on negligence insurance.
According to the British Medical Association, GP pay has fallen by 11 per cent in real terms since 2008. At the same time, the annual rise of premiums has averaged ten per cent. While a third of GPs are ready to quit now, that figure increases to more than 40 per cent if premiums continue to go up at their current rate.
The figures come from a poll of nearly 900 GPs, to be published by the Medical Defence Union (MDU) tomorrow – and are borne out by anecdotal evidence.
Preeti Shukla, a single mother who works as a GP at a surgery in Blackburn, said: ‘We are approaching breaking point. If premiums continue to rise at this pace, we will see an overnight collapse.’
She said she had been warned that when her insurance comes up for renewal in August, the premium will rise by 50 per cent – from £3,500 to up to £5,250.
Meanwhile her income is just £36,000 – it was frozen last year and this year rose by only one per cent.
‘I’ve never been sued,’ she said. ‘I love my work, but it’s getting to the point where I might be better off stacking shelves in Tesco.’
Dr Shukla, who currently works four sessions a week, added that she would love to take on extra work by helping to provide the after- hours service the Government wants – but the insurance cost was prohibitive.
Bristol GP Shaba Nabi said rising premiums had forced her to cut the number of sessions she worked with patients. Instead, she took on work such as training young doctors, which does not require insurance. ‘I’ve been a GP for 17 years, and I wanted to do more work, not less,’ she said.
‘I work at a practice in a deprived area, with very vulnerable patients. Last year I was paying a premium of £5,400 for four sessions a week. Now I’m going to be paying £5,800 for only three. I’m having to do less clinical work and more management in order to provide for my kids. This is a huge national crisis.’
GPs are twice as likely to be sued than they were ten years ago, and the NHS forecasts that lawsuits – already costing £1.5 billion a year – are set to soar to £2.6 billion by 2022.
The NHS has said it will need to find a total of £56 billion, spread over several years, to cover the e cost of lawsuits from incidents arising up to mid-2016. The figure is equivalent to almost half the NHS England annual budget.
In many smaller lawsuits, costs paid to ambulance- chasing law firms outstrip the damages.
The Medical Protection Society, which, like the MDU, is campaigning for reforms to cap these costs, said that in one case, a patient who experienced botched cosmetic surgery was paid £32,000 compensa- tion, but her lawyers got £38,000 in costs.
In another case, where the failure to diagnose a mouth condition meant a patient had to undergo surgery, costs came to £64,000 compared with damages of £50,000.
And in a case of faulty dental work, the patient was awarded just £ 1,550 but the lawyers claimed £39,621 – later reduced to £15,000 after this was challenged.
MDU chief executive Dr Christine Tomkins, said last night: ‘Primary care services are struggling to cope with an overwhelming workload, a shortage of GPs and limited funding.
‘The spiralling cost of indemnity is the final straw for some GPs. Our survey reveals that many of them – not just those of retiring age – are considering quitting.
‘ Even newly qualified doctors say that they are thinking of a career change.
‘If a third of the GP workforce leaves the profession, it will be devastating for patients and the NHS.’
‘I might be better off as a Tesco shelf-stacker’ We are facing a national crisis DR SHABA NABI