Product 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217593 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 298 pages

About the Author
Christopher Newdick is a Barrister and the Reader in Health Law at the University of Reading. He is also an honorary consultant to Reading Primary Care Trust, and a member of the Berkshire Priorities Committee.

Customer Reviews

A clear view of the strengths and weaknesses of the NHS
This book is excellent. It is a lawyer's take on the problems that cause so much difficulty for the the UK's NHS and more generally for healthcare systems worldwide. As you would hope from a barrister, the ideas presented are described thoroughly, well referenced and well argued.

His insights are both deep and broad and he has a generous understanding of the problems over resource allocation as they present themselves to patients, doctors and NHS management. He gives reasonable pointers as to how lawyers and judges handle such cases if they reach court, and what criteria they will use.

For all of us involved in NHS decision making about resource allocation and use (and that means all doctors, and most managers, and most DH civil servants) this book is a rich source for understanding and insight.

Not the easiest reading, but resource allocation issues are not easy, and this book explains why with a combination of insight and compassion. To fully understand it would take more than one reading.

Highly recommended.