Unaccountable Delegation
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It is important that necessary medical attention and treatment should be an entitlement throughout the national health service. People who are dangerously ill or injured, in severe pain or incapacitated by injuries must receive and be confident they will receive prompt and adequate treatment complying with any national standards. Shortage of financial resources should not excuse or permit any deviation from this requirement. Nor should Government targets for waiting times for non-urgent treatment divert resources away from treatments necessary to protect life and limb and other conditions of similar urgency. If a patient has two or more medical conditions that make treatment unusually dangerous or less likely to be effective, the implications must be fully discussed with the patient or carers, who must be able to influence the chosen treatment. If, for example, it is necessary to correct one condition (that might not otherwise be urgent) before treatment for another urgent condition becomes sufficiently safe, any available treatment for the first condition must be offered. It is unacceptable to have a blanket ban on groups of people from urgent treatment because of moral judgments on lifestyle even if the patient's lifestyle may add to the risk of treatment. Likewise people should be treated regardless of whether they are in the UK legally. The only exception to this principle is where there are resource constraints other than money. Organs for transplant may be in short supply in the long term, and should go to the people most likely to benefit from them. Major epidemics or disasters may necessitate short-term prioritisation, again of the people most likely to benefit from attention. But this type of prioritisation should follow the greatest possible diversion of resources into the most urgent work. Two trends in Government policy interfere with the principle that some treatments are necessary and should be an entitlement and an absolute priority.
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Sheila
Porter-Williams |