Medical Defense Society
Medical Defense Society is a mutual defence organisation working to protect and support General Practitioners and associated healthcare professionals and organisations. The society structure is a private company limited by guarantee, Medical Defense society operates only within the UK and Channel Islands and complies with all relevant company law.
Medical Defense Society view
The Act defines modern slavery as “slavery, servitude, and forced or compulsory labour” including “human trafficking”. The Board believes firmly that there are no circumstances in which it is acceptable to support and / or encourage slavery, forced labour and / or human trafficking.
Internal risks and processes
We believe that the professional-service nature of our business exposes us to a lower risk of the occurrence of slavery, forced labour and / or human trafficking. Internal controls help to ensure that we comply with the Act, we are committed to fair pay and no one working within the company earns less than the living wage. Our culture within the company provides a strong foundation for our employees’ health and wellbeing
Identification of risk in our supply chain
We have a varied supply chain, which includes the purchase of a range of products and services – for example, professional services (legal, audit and investment management), office equipment and supplies, cleaning services, ICT and telecommunications, utilities, training and consultancy services, promotional items, catering, and travel services.
As in previous years, we used a risk-based approach to assess the likelihood of slavery, forced labour and / or human trafficking within our supply chain. This considered, amongst other things, the origin of a product, the location and method for providing a service and the value of a product / service. We used a questionnaire to review our scoped suppliers to identify and assess potential risk areas. We received a satisfactory and timely response from our suppliers.
We will repeat this risk-based approach in 2021, focusing on new suppliers. There have been no instances to date where we have had to remove organisations from our supply chain.
Signed
Rohan Simon
Chief Executive
03 March 2021
