News from the RCPsych: RCPsych’s statement on the Medical Innovation Bill – Third Reading in the House of Lords Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists said: “RCPsych understands and sympathises with the sentiment behind the Medical Innovation Bill, but regrettably cannot support it in its present form. We have significant concerns that the Bill in its current form is unnecessary, leaves the door open for irresponsible practice in the name of innovation (which could be detrimental to patients), and also fails to provide any mechanisms to promote good innovation for the benefit of patients. We note and respect the clear legal opinions of Sir Robert Francis QC as to why this Bill is unnecessary. The current law of negligence does not prevent responsible innovation and never has. The Medical Protection Society, which has extensive experience of issues of clinical negligence and advising doctors on ethical and medico-legal matters, has clearly stated it is not aware that a fear of clinical negligence claims is preventing doctors from being innovative. The Bill’s current provisions about the need for doctors to obtain the views of potentially just one ‘appropriately qualified’ doctor and ‘taking account’ of their views before undertaking innovation treatment are worryingly vague, and provide an insufficient safeguard for protecting patients against an unjustifiable risk of harm. The Bill would also significantly inhibit genuine medical innovation. If innovation is to be of any real benefit it has to be a collective and not an individual activity. The lack of reference in the Bill to the need to record and disseminate knowledge about a new treatment or procedure practised by an individual clinician will result in a missed opportunity to bring about any potential wider public benefit from its provisions. Moreover, if individual clinicians feel that the Bill offers them the opportunity of by-passing the need for clinical trials on a regular basis, this could significantly undermine recruitment to and participation in proper clinical trials which are key to finding innovative new treatments. This would be detrimental to patients in the long term.” services.parliament.uk/bills/2014-15/medicalinnovation.html
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:41:33 +0000
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