At the same time, it is very satisfying when our work is independently recognised. For some years, our membership department has been accredited under the Customer Service Excellence Standard which measures our performance in areas like accuracy, timeliness and staff attitude.

And last month, I was proud to learn that the MDU is to receive the Princess Royal Training Award for the way we train and develop our medico-legal advisers (MLAs). We are the first medical defence organisation to receive this accolade and we are one of only 40 organisations to be successful in 2017, from a longlist of 116.

It's significant that the Award acknowledges our MLA training programme because the quality of our medico-legal expertise underpins the MDU's reputation for excellence (reflected in an increase in the number of our GP and consultant members last year). As the UK's largest and oldest medical defence organisation, we currently receive more than 20,000 calls to our medico-legal advice line each year and the advisory team is the first point of contact for members seeking guidance and support.

Our MLAs are qualified doctors with real-life experience of the challenges faced in clinical practice. We build their medico-legal experience with a first-class training programme which equips them with the depth and breadth of knowledge they need to help members with a huge range of legal and ethical problems and which instils the service ethos of the MDU.

Developed and led by senior MLAs, the in-house programme includes a wide range of activities including tutorials on subjects like confidentiality and patient complaints; visits to the coroner's court and the GMC where they can see what members experience; as well as training on practice case files and advice calls to test and develop each person's understanding as well as developing their pastoral skills.

Passing our expertise on to you

Dr Christine Tomkins

Passing our expertise on to you