About DDS
Doctors Defence Service (DDS) is an independent legal defence service for medical doctors who wish to register in the UK, or who are facing General Medical Council (GMC) fitness to practise proceedings. DDS also provides representation at inquests, and advises doctors on employment law, NHS contracts, private practice law, commercial and trusts law, and all other areas of law affecting registered medical practitioners. Doctors Defence Service is an independent private law service for doctors that is not affiliated to any medical defence union or regulator.
Doctors Defence Service’s headquarters are based in Manchester (and are situated close to the GMC, on Oxford Street). Doctors Defence Service also has an office in London (as the GMC holds hearings in both London and Manchester). A number on annexes across the UK deal with other matters of law concerning doctors and their commercial practices. Doctors Defence Service is made up of a team of specialist barristers and special advisors who have represented many doctors and other healthcare practitioners in fitness to practise proceedings over the past decade. Doctors Defence Service is managed and overseen by Lee Gledhill, who has over thirteen years experience practising as a barrister in GMC fitness to practise law and medico-legal civil law and criminal law. He is supported by a team of highly trained lawyers (Penny Maudsley, Thomas Oxton, Catherine Stock, David Welch) who have each represented doctors and other professionals before the healthcare regulators, and other courts and tribunals. All of the lawyers at Doctors Defence Service have in place professional indemnity insurance for all legal work undertaken, and work to high regulatory standards.
Doctors Defence Service (DDS) covers many areas of law and has specialist expertise in the areas of law set out below. The lawyers at DDS have particular expertise in defending doctors in fitness to practise hearings at the General Medical Council (GMC). DDS lawyers also have expertise in registration applications and appeals, doctors’ commercial operations and contracts, employment law concerning practices and doctors contracts of services in private and NHS practice. DDS lawyers also represent doctors at coroners’ inquests that examine the deaths of patients and explore whether a doctor or a GP practice has caused or contributed to death, and in criminal law cases. DDS also deal with general civil law, including trusts law for doctors who wish to put a business into a trust. DDS also provides within this website a digest of legal cases relevant to doctors.
Doctors Defence Service is an independent commercial legal service and is not linked or affiliated to any medical defence union or regulator of clinicians. Our staff undergo rigorous training and selection before they can represent doctors in the various fields that DDS covers.
Our lawyers have represented many hundreds of specialist doctors in a variety of legal forums. We also give legal advice and assistance to doctors who might also have a unique legal problem that requires legal reasearch and analysis in order for a remedy to be identified. DDS staff are trained in undertaking bespoke legal research, which on occasions may include an international element.
To discuss a legal matter in confidence and without obligation, call Doctors Defence Service on 0800 10 88 739
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