London to carry on valuable patient safety discussions

8 January 2019

The Victorian Managed Insurance Authority has passed the baton to NHS Resolution to host the next Global Medical Indemnity Forum in London in 2020.

It follows the success of the inaugural forum, hosted in Melbourne in December, which saw insurers, healthcare experts and academics explore challenges and opportunities within the medical indemnity sector.

The forum highlighted the value of collaboration between insurers, clinicians and health services working together to implement initiatives focused on reducing harm and improving patient safety.

Investment in incentive training programs to upskill medical staff, such as VMIA’s Incentivising Better Patient Safety program, and analysis of insurance claims data to identify trends leading to claims, were two key areas explored during the forum.

Before the next forum in 2020, VMIA, which provides medical indemnity insurance and risk advice to Victorian public health services, is working to identify global collaborations to keep the conversation going.

Collaborations will take the form of joint research projects to improve patient outcomes, international residencies and the analysis of global datasets to explore underlying issues and forecast future issues.

Quotes attributable to Victorian Managed Insurance Authority, CEO Colin Radford.

“There are many common challenges to medical indemnity insurance worldwide. Collaborating with our peers gives us the opportunity to learn from successes across the world and improve outcomes for patients and their families.”

“VMIA wants to keep the collaboration between global insurers and healthcare sectors alive. Individually, organisations are making huge strides towards improved patient outcomes, so think of what we can achieve together.”

“Insurers have a valuable role to play in better patient outcomes. We can support the healthcare sector to understand the underlying patterns behind medical indemnity claims, provide them with research, and incentivise them to uplift training amongst their multidisciplinary clinical teams.”

Quotes attributable to NHS Resolution, CEO Helen Vernon.

“Patient care gets better when we all work together and that’s why NHS Resolution is delighted to host the next Global Medical Indemnity Forum.”

“Our purpose is to provide expertise to the National Health Service, England’s publicly funded healthcare system, to resolve concerns fairly and share learning to improve safety. The forum opens us and other providers of indemnity up to new ideas and ways of working to help us strengthen our services.”