A 22-stone ex-policeman trying to persuade a health authority to fund obesity surgery started the latest round of his legal fight today. Grandfather Tom Condliff, of Talke, Staffordshire, who is 62 and 6ft 2in, says he needs stomach surgery to save his life. But the North Staffordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) refuses to fund a laparoscopic gastric bypass operation. In April, the High Court refused to quash the PCT's decision not to provide the surgery. Today, Mr Condliff's lawyers sought to overturn the High Court ruling in the Court of Appeal.
The ‘elusive’ concept of ‘impairment’ was introduced into the General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise Procedures in 2002. Its function was ostensibly to bring all forms of fitness to practise allegations against doctors under a unifying concept and thereby reduce procedural complexity. This paper strives to illuminate the application of ‘impairment’ of fitness to practise with reference to a year of fitness to practise decision making by the General Medical Council (GMC). It concludes that impairment has brought with it a redemptive style of resolving matters of
However, further advances are under threat in the UK from inflexible laws, cumbersome licence requirements and fear of liability. Here we report a sequence of events that led to a UK clinical scientist withdrawing from participation in an international transplant research study in receipt of research ethics approval. We highlight the difficulties encountered and discuss possible solutions which, we believe, would promote legitimate research in the interest of the common good. We also contend that the current human tissue legislation should be replaced by a legal framework more responsive to the importance of scientific innovation for clinical service development in this field.
This paper explores the issue of donation of organs from deceased donors for transplantation into a specified recipient. It argues that proper account should be taken of the principles underlying the Human Tissue Act 2004, which grant the donor a form of proprietary control. Three hypothetical scenarios are then used to draw out the implications of these principles for existing regulatory policy and the common law response to excised human organs. The paper concludes that the law should be understood as recognising ownership in organs removed from living and deceased persons and as offering opposition to the prohibition of directed donation that can only be coherently removed by reform of the 2004 Act.
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 extent to which people should be able to have some control over how and when they die is a hugely contentious issue. In 2006, the House of Lords blocked Lord Joffe’s bill that would have allowed terminally ill people in certain circumstance to be helped to die. Yet there is little robust and impartial evidence about the attitudes of people in Britain towards these issues. To find out more about what people think, the 2005 British Social Attitudes survey included a set of questions about attitudes to assisted dying and end of life care.
At 63, Pratchett — who has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's — speaks openly about causing his own death. "I believe everyone should have a good death," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop." Pratchett has become an advocate for legalized assisted suicide in Britain, making him one of many voices in a global debate. Many oppose the practice for religious reasons or because they fear a slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia; but Pratchett has turned the legalization of assisted suicide into something of a personal crusade.
A 46-year-old-man who wants to die after a stroke that left him almost completely paralysed is bringing a groundbreaking legal action that could effectively lead to the legalisation of assisted suicide in the UK. Martin was a fit and active man who enjoyed rugby, cars and socialising with friends in the pub before suffering a brainstem stroke three years ago. Now requiring round-the-clock care, his mobility is limited to moving his eyes and small movements of his head. He communicates by staring at letters on a computer screen which the machine recognises and forms into words spoken by a digitised voice. Martin has been asking to die since six months after the stroke but says he has no one willing to assist him and cannot on his own organise a trip to the Swiss clinic Dignitas, where he could end his life legally. His wife, who chooses to be known as Felicity, says she will be with him if he dies but will not help bring about his death.
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".
Anti-abortion campaigners are pressing ahead with a controversial amendment to the Government’s new health bill designed to cut the number of pregnancies which are terminated each year in the UK. The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who is proposing the amendment, said yesterday she would not be “bought off” by the promise of a Government consultation on whether or not to offer independent counselling to all women considering an abortion. Instead she said she wanted to change the law to strip abortion charities and doctors of their exclusive responsibility for counselling women seeking to terminate a pregnancy, and hand it to specially trained professionals.
The husband of a woman who died in one of Britain's best-known hospitals is taking its management and the health secretary Andrew Lansley to court, alleging an illegal use of "do not resuscitate" orders. David Tracey claims doctors at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, twice put such orders in his wife's medical notes, cancelling the first after she objected to it only to put in a second three days later without her consent or any discussion with her. Tracey alleges the hospital's actions deprived his 63-year-old wife Janet of the right to life and subjected her to degrading treatment, while he was denied respect for his personal and family life. He is also seeking to force the coalition government to draw up a policy for England on the use of Do Not Attempt Cardio-pulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) instructions, and claims the present system of local policies is open to abuse.
Terminally ill patients who want to commit suicide should be able to receive medical help to die, a government adviser on care for the elderly has said. Martin Green, a dementia expert for the Department of Health, said patients who were too frail to take their own lives were being denied “choice” and “autonomy” because assisted suicide is illegal in the UK. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he urged ministers to review the law and suggested that a referendum or a free vote in Parliament should be called to settle policy on the issue. “If you’re going to give people ‘choice’, it should extend to whether or not they want to die,” he said.
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