This document sets out the general framework for assessment in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) and provides guidance to UK higher education institutions about making submissions to the 2014 REF. It includes guidance on procedures, the data that will be required, and the criteria and definitions that will apply. The deadline for submissions is 29 November 2013.
Documentary about the the people of EMS (Electronic Music Studios) a radical group of avant-garde electronic musicians who utilized technology and experimentation to compose a futuristic electronic sound-scape for the New Britain. Comprising of pioneering electronic musicians Peter Zinovieff and Tristram Cary (famed for his work on the Dr Who series) and genius engineer David Cockerell, EMSs studio was one of the most advanced computer-music facilities in the world. EMSs great legacy is the VCS3, Britains first synthesizer and rival of the American Moog. The VCS3 changed the sounds of some of the most popular artists of this period including Brian Eno, Hawkwind and Pink Floy
In Großbritannien waren Anfang letzten Jahres offene Standards bei der Softwarebeschaffung zur Handlungsempfehlung für Regierungsbehörden geworden. Das Cabinet Office hat seine Action Note allerdings Ende 2011 zurückgezogen.
We are a centre for social innovation based in London, with a 50 year track record of success in creating new organisations - public, private and non-profit - as well as influencing ideas and policies.
The continued division of Cyprus suits Britain’s geopolitical interests, as well as those of world powers that see the Mediterranean island as a useful pawn in a longstanding game of chess. Darren Loucaides reports from a country that wants to determine its own future.
by Max Fisher, NYT 5 July 2017
A formal assessment found that Germany could legally finance the British or French weapons programs in exchange for their protection.
He is not a typical campaigner. But behind his quiet manner is such a firm belief that assisted suicide should be legalised in Scotland that he has taken the extraordinary step of describing how as a GP he helped patients who wanted to end their lives. He did not embark on his medical career to do this. Instead, he said, he formed his views through reading and experience with patients over the years. Surprisingly he said Dame Cicely Saunders, credited with founding the hospice movement, made an impression on him early on. Dr Kerr, an atheist, is a volunteer driver for a hospice today. He said: "Cicely Saunders noticed doctors and nurses actually spent much less time with people with a terminal diagnosis and these people became more isolated as their needs increased. I think I was for a long time aware of the appropriateness of doctors discussing end-of-life issues or at least giving patients an opportunity to raise the subject."
New report finds half of dying Britons are not dying well At a pivotal time for end of life care in Britain the need for advance care planning is reinforced Divided in Dying, a new report from charity Compassion in Dying, finds that almost half of those who have lost someone close to them through a short or long illness, feel their loved one died badly (45%). In cases where the dying person had recorded their end of life wishes, relatives and friends are more likely to report that they had a good death (58%). Alongside recording end of life wishes (19%), better communication between the doctor and their loved one (39%), co-ordination of care (33%) and being able to die in a place of their choice (31%) were also identified as key aspects which could have improved the situation for the person who died in a bad way. Compassion in Dying surveyed over 2400 British adults who were asked to recall the experience of the last relative or close friend who died.
A grandmother who strangled her terminally ill former partner has been given a suspended jail sentence. Joyce Evans, 69, killed 66-year-old former soldier Colin Ballinger at her home in New Orleans Walk, Islington, north London, last July. She was found guilty of manslaughter at a previous hearing at the Old Bailey. Judge Gerald Gordon said Evans, who has depression, should not have been left to provide the "arduous care" the dying man needed. Evans, who has served what would be equivalent to a 19-month jail sentence on remand, was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, coupled with three years' supervision.
A woman whose husband became a sperm donor without her knowledge is seeking to change the law (reported in BioNews 671). Her claim is that a husband's sperm constitutes a 'marital asset', over which a wife should have some legally enforcable rights. Currently, there is no legal requirement for a spouse to consent to her partner's sperm donation. But perhaps there should be? After all, marriage is usually understood to entail a degree of shared decision-making. And since begetting children - with one's spouse - is traditionally a primary reason for tying the knot, can it really be compatible with marital mores for husbands to conceive children with other people?
We give Martin permission to appeal against the DPP, although we do not consider that the appeal has any real prospect of success. Our reason for giving permission is the first of the “two other compelling reasons” advanced in the application for permission to appeal. More particularly, we consider that our approach to the role of the DPP and to the decision in Purdy in relation to s2 of the Suicide Act raises questions of sufficient significance to merit consideration by the Court of Appeal.
These proceedings involve separate but linked applications by two men for leave to apply for orders under s.8 of the Children Act 1989. In each case, the application concerns a child conceived using sperm provided by the man and born to a woman in a civil partnership. As a result of the reforms introduced in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, legal parenthood of the children is vested in the mothers and their respective civil partners to the exclusion of the biological fathers who therefore have no right to apply for orders in respect of the children without the leave of the court. I am told that these two cases are the first to come before the court involving an application for leave to apply for s.8 orders from men who, having provided sperm for couples in a civil partnership, are by virtue of the 2008 Act not the legal fathers of the children thereby conceived. It is argued by counsel appearing before me that the outcome of this case has significant public policy...
In 2007, the European Union adopted a lex specialis, Regulation (EC) No. 1394/2007 on advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), a new legal category of medical product in regenerative medicine. The regulation applies to ATMPs prepared industrially or manufactured by a method involving an industrial process. It also provides a hospital exemption, which means that medicinal products not regulated by EU law do not benefit from a harmonized regime across the European Union but have to respect national laws. This article describes the recent EU laws, and contrasts two national regimes, asking how France and the United Kingdom regulate ATMPs which do and do not fall under the scope of Regulation (EC) No. 1394/2007. What are the different legal categories and their enforceable regimes, and how does the evolution of these highly complex regimes interact with the material world of regenerative medicine and the regulatory bodies and socioeconomic actors participating in it?
Judgment has been reserved in a case brought by a severely disabled man with "locked-in syndrome" who has urged a judge not to halt his High Court action to let a doctor end his life. Tony Nicklinson, 57, of Melksham, Wiltshire, wants a doctor to be able to "lawfully" conduct an assisted suicide.
The General Medical Council is consulting on our new draft guidance for the Investigation Committee and case examiners (decision-makers) to use when they are considering allegations about a doctor’s fitness to practise that relate to encouraging or assisting suicide.
Guidance for the Investigation Committee and case examiners when considering allegations about a doctor’s involvement in encouraging or assisting suicide. Draft for consultation Start: Feb 6, 2012 End: May 4, 2012 Results Published: Jul 31, 2012
The case of a paralysed man who wants doctors to be able to take his life without fear of prosecution is being heard at the High Court. Tony Nicklinson, 58, from Wiltshire, has locked-in syndrome following a stroke seven years ago. The hearing represents a fundamental challenge to the law on murder, the BBC's Fergal Walsh reports. [includes short interview with Penney Lewis]
After a stroke in 2005 left him almost completely paralysed, Tony Nicklinson has been fighting for the right to end his own life. Here, ahead of a high court ruling, he is interviewed via Twitter by Observer readers and Elizabeth Day, who meets his family and supporters – along with opponents of euthanasia
According to a BBC report, Tony Nicklinson, 58, from Melksham, Wiltshire, has “locked-in syndrome” after a stroke in 2005 and “is unable to carry out his own suicide.” “He is seeking legal protection for any doctor who helps him end his life.” In fact, it is not quite correct that Tony Nicklinson “is unable to carry out his own suicide.” He could at present refuse to eat food or drink fluids. Hunger strikers do this for political reasons. He could do it for personal reasons. People should not be force fed against their own autonomous wishes.
In circumstances where life-sustaining treatment appears merely to be drawing out the inevitable, it is usual practice for the healthcare team to withdraw aggressive life-sustaining measures, once agreement is reached with the patient and their family. Common law gives doctors several defences to allegations of criminality or malpractice in taking the key actions that withdraw treatment and result in the patient's death; however, the legal defensibility of nurses undertaking this role has not been explored. In the absence of a specific body of law related to nurses taking the actions that withdraw life-sustaining treatment, I discuss the probable legal response by consideri
'A new pathway for the regulation and governance of health research' was published in January 2011. The report was prepared by a working group, chaired by Professor Sir Michael Rawlins FMedSci, convened in response to an invitation from Government to review the regulation and governance of UK health research involving human participants, their tissue or their data. The report proposes four key principles that should underpin the regulation and governance framework around health research in the UK, and makes recommendations to: * Create a new Health Research Agency (HRA) to rationalise the regulation and governance of all health research. * Include within the HRA a new National Research Governance Service to facilitate timely approval of research studies by NHS Trusts. * Improve the UK environment for clinical trials. * Provide access to patient data that protects individual interests and allows approved research to proceed effectively. * Embed a culture that value
At least one in 10 suicides in England is by someone with a chronic or terminal illness, found researchers who tried to obtain information on the subject from local health authorities. Coroners told them that people were increasingly killing themselves at a younger age, rather than waiting until they were in severe pain in their 80s or 90s. And two of 15 coroners interviewed also indicated they deliberately avoided probing into possible cases of assisted suicide - which remains illegal in Britain - "often for fear of causing problems for the friends and family left behind".
The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that, while there is sufficient evidence to charge Caractacus Downes with an offence of assisting the suicide of his parents, Sir Edward and Lady Joan Downes, it is not in the public interest to do so. Sir Edward and Lady Downes died at the Dignitas Clinic, in Switzerland, on 10 July 2009. A short time later, solicitors acting on behalf of Mr Downes contacted the Metropolitan Police to report his parents' suicide. The police investigated the matter and a file of evidence was provided to the CPS for consideration.
Checklists that spell out exactly how to care for patients with common conditions have dramatically reduced hospital deaths, say doctors. The British Medical Journal reported a 15% fall in the number of people who had died at one north London hospital trust using so-called care bundles. These are checklists covering dozens of conditions including strokes, heart failure and MRSA infections. The researchers said death rates could be "halved" using the system.
LONDON -- Prosecutors on Thursday said they would consider the issue of motive in cases of assisted suicide before deciding whether to bring charges, in an attempt to clarify how the judiciary will handle an issue that has generated intense controversy in Britain. The new rules do not change the law here -- assisted suicide is still illegal, punishable by up to 14 years in prison -- but they do provide the public with guidance on which cases are likely to be brought to court.
A doctor involved in the suicide of a terminally-ill cancer sufferer has had his bail extended for the fifth time in a year, Solicitors Journal has learned. Dr Irwin paid for Raymond Cutkelvin’s flight to Zurich, where the 58-year-old took his life at the Dignitas clinic in September 2007. His bail was last extended in November last year and expired in early January this year. He has now been asked to report to Haringey police station on 6 April. Mr Cutkelvin’s partner, Alan Rees, who travelled with him to Zurich, was also arrested and released on bail. He too was asked to report to Haringey police station later in the day on 6 April.
New guidelines over whether people would face prosecution over assisting suicide place closer scrutiny on a suspect's motivation. Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said whether a person acted "wholly compassionately" and not for financial reasons was important. But he made it clear the advice does not represent a change in the law and does not cover so-called mercy killing.
Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions, has today said that while there is sufficient evidence to prosecute Alan Cutkelvin Rees and Dr Michael Irwin in relation to the death of Raymond Cutkelvin at a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland in February 2007, such a prosecution would not be in the public interest and no further action should be taken against them.
Doctors are being urged to discuss end-of-life care with the terminally ill well in advance of their final days. The General Medical Council, the profession's regulator, says early discussions can help avoid misunderstandings and conflict. In new guidelines, the GMC says doctors should start from the assumption that life should be prolonged, although not at any cost. Opportunities should also be sought to discuss organ donation.
Potentially dangerous psychiatric patients are being fitted with GPS tracking devices to prevent them absconding on day leave. The South London and Maudsley NHS Trust has attached the £600 ankle devices on more than 60 medium and high risk patients under the pilot scheme. The trust said it had consulted patients and families. The devices, which can track a person's location to within a few yards, are already used for dementia sufferers. They came into use in south London after rapist Terence O'Keefe, 39, escaped from custody at King's College Hospital before strangling 73-year-old David Kemp.
Doctors leaders have called for a halt in the development of a medical records database for patients in England. The British Medical Association says the computer-based Summary Care Records are being set up at "break-neck speed", sometimes without patients' knowledge. Ministers have expressed surprise at fears of fast change after previous criticism that it was moving slowly. The NHS IT upgrade will link more than 30,000 GPs to nearly 300 hospitals through an online appointments system. It will also feature a centralised medical records system for 50 million patients, e-prescriptions and faster computer network links.
A cancer patient who has a phobia of hospitals should be forced to undergo a life-saving operation if necessary, a High Court judge has ruled. Sir Nicholas Wall, sitting at the Court of Protection, ruled doctors could forcibly sedate the 55-year-old woman - referred to as PS. PS lacked the capacity to make decisions about her health, he said. Doctors at her NHS Foundation trust had argued PS would die if her ovaries and fallopian tubes were not removed. Evidence presented to Sir Nicholas, head of the High Court Family Division, said PS was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year.
A parental order is made by the family courts and reassigns parenthood after surrogacy, extinguishing the responsibility of the surrogate parents and transferring it to the commissioning couple. The process takes place post-birth: the application must be made within the first six months of the child's life (though the surrogate's consent is ineffective until after the first six weeks) and typically takes many months to be processed by the courts. At present, only married couples can apply, but as from 6 April 2010, unmarried and same sex couples will also be eligible. The Department of Health (DH) is currently consulting on new draft regulations which prescribe the detail of this court process, and which will replace existing regulations that have been in place since 1994. The consultation closes on 23 November.
Since 1991, sperm donors in the UK have had the legal right to withdraw consent for the use of their sperm in fertility treatment. This has the potential to adversely affect patients. It may mean that previous recipients of a donor’s sperm cannot have further children who are full biological siblings to an existing child, and that embryos created from the donor’s sperm and a patient’s eggs must be destroyed. We have informally investigated withdrawal of consent by sperm donors donating after 1 April 2005, when lifelong anonymity for gamete donors ended.
A serious blunder at one of Britain's top fertility clinics dramatically increased the risk its patients would suffer a miscarriage or give birth to a child with serious health problems, sparking fresh fears about how IVF centres are run in the wake of a series of scandals. Unscreened sperm used by staff at the London Women's Clinic (LWC) to create dozens of embryos was later found to have a chromosome abnormality that could have been passed on to any unborn child, The Independent on Sunday has learnt. The British Fertility Society's screening guidelines make it clear that the clinic should never have accepted the donor. At least one couple suffered a miscarriage as a direct result.
With a national shortage of organ donors, the dilemma faced by surgeons is whether a transplant with what are called "marginal" organs from donors who could be higher risk, such as the elderly or patients with a history of cancer or drug abuse, is better than leaving a patient on a waiting list where they could die before a suitable donor can be found. Figures disclosed to File on 4 reveal that in 1998 13% of donor organs were "marginal", 10 years later this percentage had doubled. Everyone in the transplant field who has talked to the programme agreed the quality of organs from deceased donors was declining, accepting this meant added risks connected to the hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys used for transplants. As one doctor put it, this is a calculated gamble. Arising out of this comes the issue of informed consent. Who should have the final say whether an organ from a dead donor should be used, the professional or the patient?
by Edmund Christo. This paper is given the general purport of critically analyzing the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Legislation in certain Commonwealth Caribbean jurisdictions, or lack thereof, and is to conclude by proposing a way forward in dealing with jurisdictions that haven’t sought to make any changes to the prehistoric legislation governing this issue, or those that have made changes, and it can be said to be in need of reform.
The single greatest change to affect the UK fertility sector in nearly two decades will take place tomorrow, Thursday 1 October, as the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended) comes into force. Changes which will come into effect with the new legislation include: * increasing the length of time people can store their embryos * a ‘cooling off’ period if one partner withdraws consent for embryo storage * extending information access rights for donor conceived people and donors * opening the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) Register for research * introducing supportive parenting into the welfare of the child provisions * banning sex selection for non medical reasons * clarifying the scope of embryo research
It is not just friends and family who want clarity about potential criminal prosecutions for helping someone travel abroad for an assisted suicide - doctors too may face criminal proceedings for offering advice or assistance under the current law. In this week's Scrubbing Up, the Medical Defence Union's Dr James Armstrong warns that doctors may be putting their livelihood and liberty on the line by becoming involved.
A man serving a life sentence for a double murder has won a High Court victory over his right to have cosmetic surgery on the NHS. Denis Harland Roberts, 59, currently in a Co Durham jail for killing an elderly couple in East Sussex in 1989, wanted treatment to remove a birthmark. An undisclosed policy operated by Justice Secretary Jack Straw had restricted non-urgent inmate treatment. The case may mean other inmates are considered for similar treatments. However, the Prison Service said it was still "entitled to refuse escorts to hospital on grounds of risk". On Wednesday, London's High Court declared the justice secretary acted unlawfully and "contrary to good administration" in failing to disclose his full policy on medical appointments.
A couple have spoken of their utter devastation after a fertility clinic mix-up led to their last viable embryo being implanted into another woman. Debra and Paul, from Bridgend, have received damages of about £25,000 after the error in December 2007.
The government has announced a ban on patients paying for private transplant surgery using organs donated within the NHS. Ministers have accepted the recommendations of an independent report commissioned by the government after concerns that foreign patients were bypassing lengthy NHS waiting lists by paying up to £75 000 ({euro}90 000; $130 000) for a transplantation. Earlier this year it was revealed that the livers of 50 British NHS donors were transplanted into foreign patients over a two year period, with the bulk of the operations taking place in London at King’s College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital.
But there is evidence that some clinicians may already be using continuous deep sedation (CDS), as a form of "slow euthanasia". Research suggests use of CDS in Britain is particularly high - accounting for about one in six of all deaths.
Mistakes and near misses in fertility treatment are recorded by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority but until now details of the most serious cases have been kept secret. Eight of these mistakes were given grade A status, meaning they were the most serious incidents could involve events such as embryo mix ups, the death of a patient or an incident which affects a number of patients, for example, when a storage unit malfunctions and all embryos are defrosted and lost. In 2007/8 two of the eight grade A incidents involved mix-ups. A spokesman refused to give details but said they could be cases where the wrong sperm was used to fertilise and embryo or the wrong embryo was defrosted for use, but neither involved the implantation of wrong embryos. Last year there were 182 incidents out fo 52,000 cycles of treatment provided in Britain, the HFEA said.
A 22-stone ex-policeman has lost his Court of Appeal fight to force a health authority to fund obesity surgery. Tom Condliff, 62, said he needed a gastric bypass operation to save his life after becoming obese due to the drugs he takes for long-term diabetes. The Stoke-on-Trent man challenged a decision by North Staffordshire PCT to refuse to fund the procedure. Court judges expressed "considerable sympathy" but ruled the funding policy did not breach human rights laws. Lord Justice Toulson, one of three judges sitting on Wednesday, said: "Anyone in his situation would feel desperate." Mr Condliff, of Talke, who has a body mass index (BMI) of 43 - not high enough under his PCT's rules to qualify for surgery - lost a High Court battle over the decision in April. But his lawyers had argued the PCT had applied a funding policy which was legally flawed and breached his human rights.
Doctors could risk losing their licence if they fail to report fitness to practise concerns about their colleagues, MPs have recommended. In its first annual review of the functions of the General Medical Council, the House of Commons Health Committee has called for the regulator to send “a clear signal” to doctors that they are at as much risk of being investigated for failing to report concerns about a fellow doctor as they are from poor practice on their own part. Senior doctors and clinical team leaders in hospitals would be most accountable, but there would be “questions asked of everybody,” said Stephen Dorrell MP, chair of the health committee.
The United Kingdom’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has issued an edict that carrying donor cards is unacceptable and that the current organ donor system is incompatible with Jewish law. The ruling comes after years of debate among rabbinical authorities over the definition of death and when an organ may be removed for transplant purposes. The new statement from the chief rabbi and his rabbinical court, the London Beth Din, says that organs may be removed for transplantation only at the point of cardiorespiratory failure, rather than at brain stem death. The latest figures for 2010 show that 66% of donations came from donors after brain death and 34% from donors after cardiovascular death, NHS Blood and Transplant said.