It is a tragic indictment of contemporary medication that innovation is as well usually jettisoned in favour of the standing quo for worry of legal action. Defensive medicine is at the heart of so considerably clinical practice nowadays, but the Bill – if accepted into law – would deftly excise this, top the way for physicians to feel cost-free to strive for medical advancement.
This does not indicate that physicians would have totally free rein to experiment on a patient – they would still be bound by professional guidance and their duty of care would continue to be to their patient. Nor would it mean that the Bill would turn out to be a substitute for proper clinical trials.
But what it does indicate is that, in instances the place the evidence is shaky, wanting or not however clear, the Bill would set out a code by which physicians could consider options. It would supply a legal framework by which doctors, in discussion with their sufferers, could consider off-label drugs or a gadget, therapy or intervention that may possibly have some clinical data supporting it, but has however to be totally confirmed.
Initially, the Division of Health was sceptical, but given that the Bill was launched it has acquired significant public, health care and legal help. Then, in November last yr, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, gave it his backing, saying that “we need to create a climate where clinical pioneers have the freedom to make breakthroughs in treatment”, and commending Lord Saatchi as “a fantastic illustration of a parliamentarian motivated by conscience”.
A public consultation is now planned, beginning later this month. This is tremendously fascinating: the historical past of medication is littered with innovators who flew in the face of received wisdom and dared to challenge orthodoxy.
If the Bill passes, it could properly be that in many years to come Maurice Saatchi will join their ranks, and will no longer be known as an promoting guru, but the guy who helped doctors uncover a remedy for cancer – and saved an untold number of lives.
To view Lord Saatchi explain his Bill, visit telegraph.co.uk/video. For other Telegraph stories and updates on the Bill, see telegraph.co.united kingdom/well being/saatchi-bill. To react to the consultation on the Saatchi Bill site: http://saatchibill.tumblr.com/
Prince Charles is appropriate about hospital foods
Nicely completed to the Prince of Wales for highlighting the need for good food in hospitals. Speaking at an event at Clarence Property jointly organised by the Department of Overall health, he mentioned it was important to “see food as a medicine in itself”. Calling for the quality of food served by the NHS to be made a “clinical priority”, he explained extended-overdue alterations could have advantages in other areas of well being care, such as malnutrition among the elderly.
About time, as well. Absolutely you do not require far more than a modicum of frequent sense to realise that, when the body is healing itself, it requirements excellent quality food to assist?
And however some hospitals invest as little as 69p on each meal. The sad fact is that cooks are a uncommon commodity in hospitals, with “cook-chill” meals mass-developed offsite before currently being reheated – or “regenerated” utilizing high-strain steamers – in hospital. Such is the reliance on this sort of food that in a variety of new hospitals created underneath Private Finance Initiatives, there are no kitchens at all.
This is completed in the identify of expense-efficiency, but it is a false economy: sufferers who are undernourished since they aren’t eating the meals that is getting served, or because the meals is of poor high quality, will consider longer to get better.
Insights on dementia had me hooked
For those of you with an curiosity in dementia, I’m currently reading the most great guide: Where Memories Go, by Sally Magnusson. Component memoir and portion manifesto for how we ought to treat older people, it had me hooked from the moment I picked it up, and is Radio 4’s Guide of the Week from nowadays.
It is a moving account of a daughter coming to terms with her mother’s dementia, and is pitch-excellent in the way it describes what sufferers’ households go by means of: from the inform-tale feeling that anything isn’t quite right to the attempts to dismiss worries and pretend every thing is fine by way of to the acceptance that the sufferer is gradually becoming lost to his or her loved ones.
It’s had me enthralled. It helps that Magnusson is a journalist – as was her mother, who was married to the broadcaster Magnus Magnusson – and tackles the topic with insight and perspicacity. It ought to be compulsory studying for every medical professional and nurse, simply because it reminds us that behind each and every patient with dementia, there are close friends and households who are grieving for the man or woman that we will by no means know.
Max Pemberton’s most recent guide, ‘The Medical doctor Will See You Now’, is published by Hodder. To order a copy, phone Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1515
Why I back the pioneer Lord Saatchi
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