Who Should We Treat Rights, Rationing, and Resources in the NHS [Hardcover]

The NHS has undergone substantial reform and investment since 1980, yet demand for care still exceeds supply and difficult choices remain between patients. Why is this so? On what basis should these decisions be made and by whom? As patients become 'consumers' of care, Who Should We Treat? puts patients' rights into their political, economic, and managerial perspectives to consider one of the most pressing problems in contemporary society.


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

Reviews from the previous edition:

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. --NewEngland 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

Christopher Newdickis a Barrister and the Reader in Health Law at the University oflC‘