If your company provides clinical services, it could be held legally liable for the actions of its employees, or contractors. Consequently, it could also be sued as a separate entity instead of, or in addition to, the individual clinicians.

It's important to understand what this means, and in our experience from speaking with members, some dental practice owners are not always aware that they can face litigation and complaints as the owner of a company, in addition to their role as a practice owner.

A patient claim could name the treating dentist, the practice owner and/or name your limited company. Practices set up as a limited company may be held liable for a range of alleged failings. Some of these include:

• the poor performance or conduct of individual staff and sub-contractors, particularly employees who do not usually have their own indemnity
• inadequate practice systems and procedures, such as patient referrals, infection control and data protection
• poor quality training and lack of regular assessment of staff
• failure to properly investigate complaints or patient safety concerns.

If you provide dental services through a company and you employ other clinical staff, you'll need to consider a corporate indemnity solution. This is in addition to your own personal indemnity. The DDU offers this solution to dental companies of any size, meaning we can defend your company against dental malpractice claims and complaints.

We also also offer dental corporate members indemnity for clinical negligence claims pleaded vicariously on behalf of their employed GDC-registered staff and dental professionals - a factor that can mean dental companies may now find themselves at greater risk of being the subject of a complaint or claim.