Wasting our money or value for money?

Most doctors in the UK will, or more importantly should, be part of a a medical defence organization. In the UK there ae 2 major players the Medical Defence Union established in 1885 and the Medical Protection Society established in 1892.

 

For those less bright, like our 2 previous Prime Ministers, there is also the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland established 1902 whose premiums are a lot less than elsewhere presumably because the standard of medicine, or more importantly the standard of knowledge there, is less?

 

(In house joke before you reach for your claymores but it is a mute point at ND Central that some GPs' costs are more equal than others for the same job).

 

So for all of us idle GPs who spend 5 days a week on the golf course ignoring our patients a full time golfing GP will pay between £ 5,600 to just under £ 6,000 a year depending on which society they are with and when their subscription is renewed (tax deductable of course comrades).

 

The money we GPs pay is usually well spent but an article, nay two articles, one in the opinion section of one of the defense unions' rags one week and then a second in the next edition made some of us wonder whether their usual true objectivity in providing us with medicolegal good practice and advice has become watered down?

 

A doctor, whose true role within in the medical profession is not well known, has given his "informed" opinion on online reviews. What is even more worrying is the fact that the page before a "content lead" from NHS Choices gives their "expert" advice on responding to online reviews. Both articles are of dubious or doubtful benefit to your average GP on the links. NHS Choices we have commented on before here and here.

 

We will not give a direct link to the doctor's own website but would say that using it (or using NHS Choices) is a bit like reading the Dead Sea Scrolls to find a good doctor today. Years out of date with large gaps and pieces missing and references to the then living being erroneous.

 

What is more this doctor is also speaking to conferences organized by one of the above defence organizations. So the question we have here at ND Central is in the title of the piece.

 

Are we as doctors getting value for our annual subscription monies from one particular defence organization's spending for what we are sure are works of medicolegal excellence (not) and speeches to conferences that we are sure will be being provided as charitable works from which we we will all benefit from?

 

Praise be to the Party for continuing to provide the NHS with IT services that the rest of the world laughs at. Using them isn't that funny or that useful for frontline medical staff and reading articles from those taking the proverbial that we have paid for isn't funny either.