Automatic vicarious liability protection for dental practice owners

Dental defence organisation MDDUS today (Thursday 27 May) announced it had added an automatic vicarious liability extension to its practice owner membership grade.

An increasing number of dental claims are being brought against practice owners alleging vicarious liability for incidents of negligent care provided by an employed or contracted associate dentist.

The move by MDDUS aims to reassure its members that they can seek assistance with claims raised against them as a practice owner which arise from this non-delegable duty of care to patients.

Chris Godeseth, customer and development director at MDDUS, said: “We know many practice owners have been concerned about the implications for them of the recent county court judgement in Breakingbury v Croad.

“The automatic vicarious liability extension to our GDP Practice Owner membership grade will give them confidence they are fully supported.”

MDDUS is the only dental defence organisation to offer this protection automatically to its members, with market-leading benefits including:

• An automatic vicarious liability extension to our GDP Practice Owner membership grade. This is available to members who own and work in a single practice
  
  
• Access to indemnity on an occurrence basis
  
  
• Retrospective coverage dating back to when the member joined MDDUS or five years (the longer period of the two will apply)

The extension to the GDP Practice Owner membership grade is free and automatic. There is no action required by existing members of MDDUS.

The vicarious liability extension will also be available to all new individual members who join MDDUS on the GDP Practice Owner grade and the five year retrospective coverage period will apply automatically as a benefit of membership.

MDDUS has also developed a new product to protect practice owners with more than one practice. Members and other interested parties should contact MDDUS on 0333 043 0000 for further information and a quote.