Today I wrote to the Health Secretary about dental discretionary indemnity. Most patients & dentists don’t know the downsides of these arrangements. The Govt needs to consider acting to safeguard both patients & healthcare professionals.

You can read my full letter below.

Dear Secretary of State,

I am writing to you to relay concerns over the current problems relating to dental discretionary indemnity.

My constituent’s father was driven to suicide after over a decade of seeking compensation for botched dental work that left him in agony. You can read more about this case here.

The dentist who carried out the surgery was registered with the UK dentist regulatory body, the General Dental Council (GDC), which requires all dentists (both NHS and private) to have professional indemnity in order to be a member. However, it turned out she did not have appropriate cover.

Instead, the dentist was only ‘covered’ via her membership of the Dental Defence Union (DDU). Organisations like the DDU are not insurance companies but they offer professional indemnity on a discretionary basis for members against the risk of dental negligence claims and of professional conduct proceedings. Yet, the GDC currently accepts this as appropriate.

As you know indemnity cover for healthcare professionals including dentists has been the subject of a consultation launched by the Department of Health in December 2018. However little progress has come from this despite the wealth of evidence in favour of not allowing discretionary indemnity, including the call for urgent action as per the Paterson Inquiry recommendations: “We recommend that the Government should, as a matter of urgency, reform the current regulation of indemnity products for healthcare professionals, in light of the serious shortcomings identified by the Inquiry, and introduce a nationwide safety net to ensure patients are not disadvantaged”

I am relaying my constituent’s call for an amendment to the Health Care and Associated Professions (Indemnity Arrangements) Order 2014 via secondary legislation. This does not require lengthy primary legislation. The above legislation which represents the current drafting of the Dentists Act, allows both insurance and discretionary indemnity arrangements. However, my constituent and many in the industry and myself deem this to be insufficient.

As a result, I am calling for the Government to strike out the following lines in the current legislation below:

The Health Care and Associated Professions (Indemnity Arrangements) Order 2014

Amendment of section 26A

4. For section 26A F1(insurance for dental practitioners), substitute—

“26A    Indemnity arrangements

(1) A registered dentist who is practising as a dental practitioner must have in force in relation to him an indemnity arrangement which provides appropriate cover for practising as such.

(2) For the purposes of this section, an “indemnity arrangement” may comprise—

(a)a policy of insurance;

(b)an arrangement made for the purposes of indemnifying a person;

(c)a combination of the two

Consequently, I would be grateful if you can answer the following questions:

• Will you support amending the Health Care and Associated Professions (Indemnity Arrangements) Order 2014 to outlaw discretionary indemnity options for what is considered appropriate cover for practising as a dentist?
• Will you ensure that patients as well as dentists, do not find themselves in the same situation as my constituent’s father?
• If your answer is yes to the above question, how will you do this?
• Will you respond to your department’s own consultation on appropriate clinical negligence cover that was launched over 5 years ago as a matter of urgency?
• Will you explain to my constituent why these issues had not been addressed far sooner (why has discretionary indemnity been allowed to continue for so long despite the GDC and government being well aware of the dangers for many years)?
• Will you advise on what should happen now in terms of the compensation still owed to my constituent and the tragic impact this has had on her family?

The Government has a duty to ensure this safeguarding risk of patients and dentists is properly addressed. The GDC and the dental mutual societies have done little to address this issue. To exacerbate the problem, most people and professionals do not know that their discretionary indemnity arrangement could still leave them out of pocket.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours Sincerely,

Janet