Health Rationing

Health Rationing,  perverted ConDem logic.

By Mike Shipley

I was horrified to read a press report that stated that the Government was considering a new policy that could see the elderly denied treatment.  NICE, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, has been asked by the Department of Health to look at the guidelines covering the availability of drugs and treatments within the NHS.  Their aim of course is to cut expenditure and to make the NHS a more attractive prospect to the private health providers that they want to see eventually take over health delivery in the UK.

The Government wants the decisions about making treatments available to take account of the ‘benefits the patient may have in society’, rather than to focus specifically on the welfare of the patient.  The purpose of this wider consideration is to target treatments on those patients who will return to work to the…