When your insurer or defence organisation will not cover you

No. NHS indemnity schemes cover clinical negligence claims against the organisation or the practice. NHS Resolution states that the GP scheme in England gives no cover for professional regulatory matters. The GMC says NHS schemes will not help you individually with a GMC investigation or a criminal or disciplinary one.

No. Section 44C of the Medical Act 1983 requires a doctor who holds a licence to practise to have an indemnity arrangement in force. The arrangement must give appropriate cover against the liabilities of practice. In practice, that means the compensation a patient may recover. The section says nothing about the cost of answering an allegation to the GMC. Funding a regulatory defence is a separate question, and the GMC's guidance leaves the choice of arrangement to you.

Yes. The largest defence organisations describe assistance in their published documents as discretionary. What you hold is therefore a right to ask for help. It is not a contractual promise of cover for a given type of case. They publish examples of matters they are unlikely to assist with. These include deliberate, reckless or criminal acts, allegations of fraud and matters that arose before membership began. Help is sometimes refused for one allegation and offered for another.

Ask for the decision and the reasons in writing, and ask which part of the matter the decision covers. Ask for the policy wording or membership terms for the relevant period. Note every date, including each deadline in the GMC or police letter. Take advice on the regulatory or criminal case at once. A dispute about cover does not stop the GMC's timetable.

Ask whether the provider has a route for looking at the decision again. Send any facts it did not have when it decided. Correspondence showing what you declared about your scope of practice is one example. A provider that used its discretion on incomplete information can use it again on full information. Eloquia reads the refusal and the wording and tells you plainly whether a challenge is worth making. If it is, we help you ask your provider to reconsider.

Some insured wordings exclude criminal proceedings, or complaints brought by your own employees. A policy covers what its wording says. Before you rely on it, read the sections on regulatory, criminal and disciplinary proceedings. Read the exclusions and the limit of indemnity for legal costs too.

None of the state schemes defends you before the GMC. An NHS or HSC body that engages you as a locum has indemnity against clinical negligence claims through its scheme. The GMC asks you to check the arrangement for your role, so get the position in writing. For advice and representation in regulatory, disciplinary, inquest and criminal matters arising from your practice you need your own arrangement. Private work, even on NHS premises, needs adequate cover arranged for it. The GMC holds you responsible for checking that it is in place.

Yes. Representation before the GMC and the MPTS is not a reserved legal activity. Eloquia can therefore act for you on fixed fees from the first letter. We state every fee plus VAT, and each includes a specialist barrister from the outset. We quote expert fees separately, and you pay one stage at a time. Where the matter is criminal, Eloquia works with its criminal defence partner firm. Eloquia is developing a fee funding facility and a defence costs insurance product with insurance and finance partners, and details will follow.