The MDU, MPS, GMC, £128 million a year fighting amongst ourselves

Follow the money


Each year a doctors spends £415 a year on the GMC - and the GMC spends £42 million prosecuting doctors

Value for money?? you are better off shopping at Tesco


The GMC spends £42 million prosecuting doctors

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) spends £43 million "defending" doctors
The Medical Defence Union (MDU) spends £23 million "defending" doctors

The GMC spends 42 million pounds a year prosecuting doctors in an elaborate charade that involves the top QCs in the country. Nothing but the best for Mssrs Naill Dickson and Peter Rubin. If you want to see this circus in action, the Wakefield case is on again. Free entry, Euston rd, running daily until summer. All because, ten years ago, the Lancet published a paper the drug companies didn't like.

Hardly surprising the public think the medical profession are in the hands of Big Pharma and the Vaccine Companies, especially after the swine flu fiasco.

The cost of a GMC hearing is about £100,000 on each side - whose making the profit here?

Lawyers of course!
Why would lawyers stop the gravy train? The nice doctors pay their wages. The more trouble you are in, the longer your hearing, the more the lawyers get paid. Why would they help? Its steady money as long as they don't rock the boat. One solicitor even sleeps in the same house as a legal employee of one defence society - hardly a "commercially neutral act".

Lawyers do not care that most doctors end up financially crippled, unemployable and mentally broken. Because a medical colleague didn't like you, because you picked a fight with big Pharma, because you had an episode of depression, or worst of all, you put your patients above management targets.

The MDU and MPS only want your subscriptions - once they have given the appearance of support, you are on your own and the GMC wants you broken and bankrupt.

If you are in trouble,
Get independent legal advice fast. Don't waste time with MDU or MPS lawyers - it will cost you more in the long run
Join a proper Union click here for more details
Make sure your household insurance or breakdown cover includes legal costs

Interesting quotes from the defence society websites - read the small print and follow the money


"MPS is not an insurance company. The benefits of membership are discretionary – this allows us the flexibility to provide help and support even in unusual circumstances." (and abandon you at the first opportunity)

The MDU:
"can" provide advice and representation should you find yourself the subject of a GMC or disciplinary investigation relating to clinical practice.

"The MDU is still a mutual company owned by our members, who include doctors, dentists and other healthcare professionals. The benefits of membership of the MDU are all discretionary and are subject to the Memorandum and Articles of Association."
If you want to be represented in your struggles with your employers and your regulatory body -
1 - get proper advice,
2 - make sure your household insurance covers legal costs,
3 - join a proper union like Unite

Don't waste your hopes, energy, time or chances of winning your case whilst the MDU or MPS are acting for you - it is not in their interests to defend you, but it is in their interests to keep the GMC sweet, after all, without the GMC where would they be?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Medical Defence Union and Medical Protection Society

How much are you as a doctor worth to an Medico Legal Adviser? If you use their solicitors your case is worth tens of thousands of pounds! And, in most professions, such a referral is worth 10% of the case fee.

How much are the defence unions, medical legal representatives paid? not a lot, 60 - 80 K with a bit more at the higher levels. Peanuts for a doctor in todays market.

Legal bills for the medical profession, between the GMC and solicitors and MDU are probably in the region of a 100 million pounds a year. I will do the exact calculation when I start investigating the behaviour of the defence unions and General Medical Council in more detail

Is someone getting a kickback? It looks as though they are. It smells as though they are. It feels as though they are. Because Medico legal advisers and MDU solicitors truss doctors up like they were chickens in the queue for the supermarket. The solicitors want Capability Hearings, they want GMC hearings. This is their steady income. More often than not, you are better off with without a solicitor than one from the MDU.

Follow the money

There has to be a reason for this behaviour. And the reason is usually money. Perhaps the solicitors are even paying the Trust representatives. Once greed gets into a system, it is like water, there is no stopping the flow.

If you use MDU legal services, look at what is happening to you very carefully. Is it is in your best interests?

In the meantime, the GMC just sit back and prepare for their Sunday roast, and lo and behold! The bird arrives gutted, filleted and ready to cook



Copyright (c) Dr. Liz Miller
www.lizmiller.info

Medical Defence Union - Are you wasting your money?

Following on from my previous post, (click here for a link) a couple of people have made contact and with the Kulkani case reflecting well on the Medical Protection Society (click here for Kulkani link) (This case enables a doctor to have proper representation at a hearing where his employment is at stake. )

The score now stands at Medical Protection Society - 3, Medical Defence Union - 0

Management within the NHS is deteriorating as reflected by an average of 10.7 sick days per employee (click here). Poor management increases sickness absence, and the chances that a doctor or other employee will be suspended, appear before the General Medical Council, or other regulatory body, even when it is the fault of the employers or University. As happened to the young doctors in Cardiff last week (click here).

Making the right choice, Medical Protection Society or Medical Defence Union could mean the diffference between getting legal representation and finding lawyers who want you to win, rather than the sort who like to keep their snouts in the medical legal gravy train. It seems to me, that as soon as the going gets tough, the Medical Defence Union drops the doctor. (On the whim of a medical legal adviser, which is what happened to the two doctors who contacted me over the weekend.)

You may think it won't happen to you. Unfortunately bad management is everywhere and, like the first gentle hug of a python's squeeze, you may not know what is happening until its too late.

Choose your membership carefully. Because, like a parachute, if the time comes and you need to use it, its too late to change.

Copyright (c) Dr. Liz Miller
www.lizmiller.info

Medical Protection Society, Medical Defence Union or Bareback?

How well do the defence societies help doctors in difficulty with their employers and the GMC?



Crown Indemnity protects National Health Service doctors from claims of negligence, so why join a defence union?

1 - To provide medical insurance for private practice

2 - To defend them in a court of law and represent them from accusations of negligence, where their Trust fails to protect their interest

3 - To provide legal representation should he or she come before the GMC and Trusts


The most important difference between the Medical Defence Union and the Medical Protection Society lies in the third area.


When choosing a defence body, or other legal insurance, the doctor needs to know whether their defence body colludes with the GMC and NHS Trusts, whether they abandon doctors at the first sign of trouble and whether they act fairly and ethically and whether they have the doctor's interest at heart.

One example might be, how do the defence bodies view a capability hearing? Do they understand that going to a capability hearing is the single worst move any doctor can make? Would the doctor be better joining a Trade Union? At least Trade Unions understand the dangers of a capability hearing

For whom does the defence body work for?

The GMC, the Trust, Zurich Insurance or their doctors?

In the coming weeks, I will see how the Defence Bodies score in their


1 - legal knowledge and understanding of the GMC processes
2 - understanding of employment law
3 - understanding of Trust, GMC and relevant quasijudicial processes
4 - Moral and ethical stance, did they support the doctor and help them through one of the most difficult periods of their career, or did they abandon the doctor without legal assistance

and most importantly:
5 - Outcome: whether doctors were sacked, reached compromise agreements, ended up in the GMC or were able to get back to the work

If you know someone who has experience of the MDU or MPS, or other assistance scheme, please email me at liz at liz miller dot co dot uk

I will post my conclusions in due course Click here for more information

Copyright (c) Liz Miller
http://www.lizmiller.info/



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