I have written a lot of late about the obvious attitude to change and strategy from defence unions over the past few years, from defending dentists integrity to settling as a result of costs. I believe in higher circles this is known as 'risk management'.
It's certainly quite well dressed up by the concept of 'what is best for the members' so it seems reasonable in the short term to settle low level cases which would otherwise cost a lot legally, but in the long term this leads to the bullies returning back and back and back.
This was demonstrated to me recently by someone who attended one of our courses and then corresponded by email afterwards (name withheld). When they qualified some years ago Dental Protection sponsored a qualification dinner in Yorkshire. The quotes on the back of the programme for the dinner, which were showing the ethos and benefits of Dental Protection are very poignant in respect of how the strategy has obviously changed. There is a photograph of the programme below, just read the quotes for yourself.
At what point did we cross the line into settling legal cases much more often than defending them?
The bullies will come back. You need to stand up to bullies.
In effect what patients do is get a sniff of compensation for a complication and equate it to 'slip and trip' but their friends manage to get money from the council for tripping over flagstones. The best way to deal with this is to source and say "We're quite happy that you have an avenue for complaint, let's test that to see whether or not something bad actually did happen"
The last time I looked, Dental Protection was a defence union and The Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland was a defence union, not a 'settling union'.
Blog Post Number: 1108
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