The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare published its most recent collection of data in the latter portion of 2011 for the years 2008 and 2009. A total of 9,173 medical indemnity claims were logged to the institute. 5,072 such claims arose from the public sector, and 4,101 indemnity claims arose from the private sector. Interestingly, the total number of claims increased over the previous year, which documented a total of 8,555 claims. As previously mentioned, the three most implicated practitioners in indemnity lawsuits included obstetricians, gynaecologists and general practitioners, traditionally the most implicated of all medical professionals in civil liability claims. General practice nurses who are interested in acquiring supplemental medical indemnity insurance in the near future would do well to recognize that more than half of all claims reported to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare originated from public sector healthcare facilities. Private practices accounted for only 38% of all claims. According to the APNA, general practice nurses should also remain aware of the scope of their medical expertise, however limited it may be. Treatment and procedural complaints accounted for 44% of all claims logged to the Institute of Health and Welfare from 2008-2009. In light of these statistics, the APNA, among other similar healthcare profession organizations, has strongly advised general practice nurses against providing medical care beyond their specific discipline. Professional indemnity insurance for nurses even covers non-clinical healthcare provisions which may not be covered under an employer’s practice policy. Given the proper insurance cover, 96% of all indemnity claims in Australia are settled for less than $10,000; however, the remaining 4% can award damages in excess of $500,000. The APNA has thus recommended that potential members thoroughly review an indemnity policy’s product disclosure statement in order to determine whether the insurance cover in question truly is appropriate to a specific medical discipline.
Supplemental Medical Indemnity Insurance for General Practice Nurses
In the summer of 2010, the Health Practitioners Regulation National Law mandated that all practising nurses and midwives carry adequate medical indemnity insurance cover. The updated legislation also clearly stated that general practice nurses could be held liable, at worst negligent, in the event of a civil liability lawsuit resulting from an alleged medical malpractice incident. According to federal law, general practice nurses without the proper medical indemnity cover could potentially face charges of unprofessional conduct. However, in reality, documented cases of medical professionals answering to such serious accusations are quite rare, if not wholly unheard of, given the proliferation of several choice medical indemnity policies available to the Australian healthcare community today. Professional indemnity insurance for nurses all but assures that general practice nurses will have more than adequate cover in the event of an accidental medical mishap during a doctor-approved prudent course of treatment, whether procedural, diagnostic or post-operative. In fact, the Australian Practice Nurses Association (APNA) has cautioned its members that the most common staff and entity policies and practice policies offered by healthcare employers (i.e. private clinics and public hospitals) simply will not suffice in the event of a serious allegation of malpractice. The frank truth of the matter is that an employer’s vicarious liability, also known as secondary liability in civil discourse, will not extend to claims levied against general practice nurses or other healthcare staff individually. The employer only assumes liability up to a certain point, defined by the amount of monetary damages an indemnity policy will remit. In essence, general practice nurses are subject to the same legal scrutiny as general practitioners and specialists such as gynaecologists and obstetricians — the two spheres of medicine most often implicated in malpractice lawsuits according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s most recently available statistics.
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