MDU appoints new Head of Underwriting

17 May 2010

The Medical Defence Union (MDU), has appointed Dr James Armstrong as its new Head of Underwriting, responsible for monitoring the pattern of costs associated with medical indemnity and identifying risks in clinical practice that lead to complaints and claims.

Dr Armstrong, who has worked at the MDU, the UK's largest medical defence organisation, since 2007, will head up a team that includes two more doctors experienced in underwriting clinical risks and a number of technical and support staff.

Dr Armstrong, who completed specialist training in anaesthetics before joining the MDU as a medico-legal adviser, said:

"As a not-for-profit mutual organisation, we've always strived to ensure that our subscriptions are fair and reflect the type of work members are doing and I will be continuing this work in my new role.

"We also have a long tradition at the MDU of publishing data on complaints and claims involving members to help them anticipate where problems can arise so they can try to avoid them. For example, earlier this year we published analyses of bariatric surgery claims and of GP out-of-hours complaints. We want to build on this experience by publishing more frequent studies which we hope will help our members improve the quality of care patients receive.

"We know that members value such pre-emptive advice from us as around 40 per cent of the 25,000 calls we receive each year to our medico-legal advice line are from members requesting advice to help them make a decision about a patient and to avoid medico-legal difficulties."

---

Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to ePolitix.com. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the ePolitix.com service.

As such, ePolitix.com does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.