Who Should We Treat?

Rights, Rationing, and Resources in the NHS

Second Edition

Christopher Newdick

Considers immensely topical issues such as the treatment of the elderly and the terminally ill, and healthcare rationing
Considers patients' rights to care in the political, economic, and managerial context of NHS treatment
Tells the fascinating story of how the NHS has attempted to answer a question that has baffled policy-makers since 1948
Written in an accessible style for students of medicine, NHS management, and health law and interested lay-readers by an academic specialist with practical knowledge of the NHS

New to this Edition:

This edition is substantially re-written. It discusses the implications of the Bristol Inquiry and the conviction of Harold Shipman which have helped to re-draw the landscape of the NHS
Discusses how markets and incentive schemes have become endemic to the NHS and the new regulators that have been created to monitor and control doctors and NHS managers
Traces the recent successes of patients in promoting their rights to health care

Who Should We Treat?

Rights, Rationing, and Resources in the NHS

Second Edition

Christopher Newdick

Description

How should we allocate NHS resources between different patients and treatments? Increasingly, patients are regarded as 'consumers' of medical services, and yet demand for medical care exceeds the resources that are made available for it. How should the NHS manage the dilemmas presented by scarce resources? Who Should We Treat? examines the economic, political, and legal environment of patients' rights in the NHS.

Who Should We Treat?

Rights, Rationing, and Resources in the NHS

Second Edition

Christopher Newdick

1:Problems of Health Care Resources
2:Principles of Resource Allocation
3:Managing the Resource Allocation Process in the NHS
4:Organization of the NHS
5:Statutory Regulation of NHS Resource Allocation
6:Medical Negligence
7:Negligence of NHS Institutions
8:Accountability and NHS Governance
9:Private and Non-NHS Providers in the NHS
10:Trusting the NHS

Who Should We Treat?

Rights, Rationing, and Resources in the NHS

Second Edition

Christopher Newdick

Author Information

Christopher Newdick, Barrister and Reader in Health Law at the University of Reading

Who Should We Treat?

Rights, Rationing, and Resources in the NHS

Second Edition

Christopher Newdick

Reviews and Awards

Review from previous edition Where the book succeeds is in its treatment of the legal issues...It deals systematically with the place of both common law and statute in decisions as to who will or will not have access to care. The account of this complex body of law is clear and informative. - British Medical Journal

It is an incredibly detailed book, littered with appropriate and useful references. - Journal of Community Nursing

The book is clear, interesting, easy to read and admirably places in context the work of any lawyer in the health field. - Weekly Journal of the Law Society Gazette

[A] comprehensive and very readable book which highlights the varying and complex relationships that arise between law and the provision of our health services...a welcome and necessary introduction to all those who seek to study health care and the management of its resources, yet might have failed to appreciate that law and health are linked far beyond the scope of medical negligence...Any author committed to analysis of the questions of resource allocation in the NHS sets themself a mammmoth task. Newdick's text is readily comprehensible...Newdick catalogues the issues and demonstrates the urgency of the task and the challenge admirably. - Medical Law Review

The quality of work in this book is impressive. It provides a thoroughly researched exploration of legal structure of the NHS, which provides an essential addition to the literature on health care law. - Legal Studies

The book has a remarkably wide scope...The book is replete with wise statements, always made with the utmost confidence and extensively footnoted...All sides could profit from reading this book, which helps remind us of some of the practical perils of too much attention to the bottom line. - New England Journal of Medicine

the breadth of the text is to be praised and the tensions between the law, patients and resources in the NHS are well described. This book can be recommended to anyone interested in dealing with the practical challenges of rationing resources within the NHS. - Journal of Medical Ethics

...richly illuminates the trade-offs among the central indcators of a cost-effective health service - access, equity, quality, choice and cost. ...written in a language that is accessible to the medical profession and to the lay public. It also has important observations for health law and ethics. - The Lancet