Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to launch a scheme to help GPs with indemnity payments; whether that scheme will be targeted at new entrants to the profession; and if he will make a statement.

As my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said in a Written Ministerial Statement on 12 October 2017, Official Report, column 28WS, the Department is planning, subject to examination of relevant issues, the development of a state-backed indemnity scheme for general practice in England.​

Any new scheme should meet the needs of current and future general practitioners (GPs), be in the interest of patients, and represent value for money for taxpayers. Transfer of historic liabilities from Medical Defence Organisations (MDOs) to a new scheme would be dependent on satisfactory negotiation with the MDOs.

The Department will set up a stakeholder group and arrange a first roundtable next month with the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Medical Association and other GP representatives to gather views from general practice and agree how best to engage with the sector going forward.