ABSTRACT
Money is not therefore a big problem for most sick employees, because most of them will be back at work within six months, but the situation is entirely different for General Practices (GPs). It is even worse for freelance or non-principal GPs. A partnership, or individual partners, may have locum insurance to cover locum costs in case of sickness. Some partnerships earn a lot and are able to cover locum costs out of profits. The out-of-hours co-op movement has helped a lot with overall costs; the cost of paying for a locum has gone down because there are less nights and weekends to cover. The cost per shift has gone up, of course, but not by the same factor as frequency of on-call has come down. The cost of most insurance is less if taken out when young and healthy.
