News

Dermal fillers and MDU indemnity

Dr Matthew Lee, director of professional services at the MDU explains a recent change to the MDU's indemnity for members treating patients with dermal fillers

From 1 April 2013, we are asking members performing treatments with dermal fillers to ensure the filler is one which has been approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We expect that practitioners will use fillers which also have a CE mark (which relates to production standards, not efficacy). After that date, it is unlikely that we will provide support or representation for any matter arising from a treatment or procedure carried out involving a dermal filler which is not on the FDA list.

We have taken this step in response to reports from indemnity providers in other European countries of increasing litigation in respect of the use of filler products. The FDA approved list of fillers was selected in the absence of any UK or European regulation of the efficacy of such products.

We have written to the members affected to advise them of this change. The list of FDA approved fillers can be found on their website. We appreciate that some of the fillers on the FDA list have slightly different brand names in the UK and confirm that we are happy for members to use the equivalent UK product where the name differs but the manufacturer and product are the same. We are happy to provide clarification on this point to any member with queries.

If members wish to continue to administer fillers which have not been approved by the FDA they are of course free to do so but they would need to review their indemnity arrangements for such work.

GMC prescribing guidance 

The GMC has updated its guidance on prescribing in Good Practice in Prescribing and Managing Medicines and Devices (2013). The new guidance has helpful sections on shared care and recommending medicines to colleagues or prescribing those recommended by colleagues. These are common reasons for questions to the MDU advisory helpline.

You can read the full guidance here.

New seminar topics 

The MDU has introduced two new topics to its range of medico-legal seminars for hospital doctors.

End of Life Care examines the difficult ethical issues that can arise from caring for patients who are approaching the end of their life.

Patient Complaints looks at how to deal with complaints and ensure appropriate lessons are learnt.

The MDU seminars are designed to meet the medico-legal training needs of all hospital doctors, including consultants and specialty training grades. Our full menu of seminars spans a wide range of topics, from GMC Fitness to Practise to Good Record Keeping. 

The presentations are delivered at your hospital or practice, at a date and time that's convenient for you. They are entirely free of charge.

To book a seminar or to find out more about what the MDU offers, please visit themdu.com/learnanddevelop or contact your local MDU liaison manager. 

New website launch

The new, improved MDU website has been designed to make it easy for you to get the most from your membership. 

The website includes a number of new sections. 

• Guidance and advice contains all our medico-legal guidance, including the MDU guides, podcasts, videos and the latest hot topics. 
• Get MDU support is new. It offers quick, no-nonsense advice to members who need our help. 
• Learn and develop is where you can sign up for our CPD courses. It also contains advice on revalidation and case histories from our files. 
• My membership allows you to update your details and download membership documents. You can also take advantage of members-only discounts on books from leading medical publishers. 

When you visit the site you can choose to see only information relevant to you. If you log in, we'll automatically take care of this for you. 

Please take a look at themdu.com. We'd like to hear what you think about our new website. Send your comments to feedback@themdu.com

Updated Good Medical Practice 

The new Good Medical Practice guidance will be published by the GMC on 25 March 2013 and will come into effect on 22 April. You should receive a copy of the guidance from the GMC ahead of the launch date.