Last month, MDS held its annual away day to commemorate its 15th anniversary. What started as an arm’s-length organisation established to support BAPIO members has, over the years, evolved into one of the four major Medical Defence Organisations in the UK. MDS has expanded its services to encompass a wide array of roles within the UK’s healthcare community and is open to NHS professionals both domestically and internationally.
Given the substantial growth in MDS’s staff over the years, our Founding Directors, among whom is BAPIO’s President, Dr Ramesh Metha, took this opportunity to share MDS’s origin story with new joiners.
For BAPIO readers who may be unaware of this link, the founding principles behind the creation of MDS were, and still remain, fairness, equality and uncompromising service.
Fairness and equality were also some of the guiding forces behind the decision to offer MDS members a truly comprehensive defence service which would cover the vast majority of clinical and professional issues that healthcare professionals can encounter, without having to rely on a number of different organisations and require different memberships.
This is why MDS was set up to offer its members comprehensive protection, including Clinical Defence and Employment Services, to support them with both the clinical and day-to-day matters which are equally important when working in the health service, such as rotas, pay progression, negotiating contract changes and more.
Fairness and equality are also behind our continuing membership expansion over the years. We now offer our services to Medical Doctors in and out of training, Medical and Nursing students, Dentists, GPs, Nursing professionals, advanced care practitioners and others.
Our founders also acknowledged how much the team behind MDS’s exceptional services has changed since the earlier days, from a (literal) handful of dedicated founders in a small office, to solicitors, medicolegal specialists and employment advisers teams, with membership and case management support in our bustling headquarters in Trinity Gardens, Bedford.
They had particularly warm words for Dr Joydeep Grover, our Medical Director, who joined MDS to lead both the scaling up of our services and processes in order to serve an ever-growing number of members with the same passion, quality and dedication of the first day.
And we must be doing something right in sticking to our principles, as over half of our members join after a personal recommendation from an existing member, and we are particularly grateful to all BAPIO members who are also with MDS for your trust in our services, and for any recommendation you have made to friends and colleagues.
As a way to say thank you, we offer a special 10% discount for all BAPIO members on their first year with MDS and 5% off their second. For existing MDS members, we offer a £20 voucher for each recommendation resulting in a new membership!
For caring, empathetic, and personalised support and advice on both employment, regulatory, and clinical matters, you can always rely on MDS. And if you are not ready to become a member yet, you can have a look at our growing collection of case studies, guides, and features, which might offer you useful pointers and showcase where we can help.