Medical innovation laws: an unnecessary innovation

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette Richards

Objective This paper aims to demonstrate that any suggestion that there is a need for specific innovation laws is flawed. Innovation is central to good medical practice and is adequately supported by current law. Methods The paper reviews the nature of medical innovation and outlines recent attempts in the UK to introduce specific laws aimed at ‘encouraging’ and ‘supporting’ innovation. The current legal framework is outlined and the role of the law in relation to medical innovation explored. Results The analysis demonstrates the cyclic relationship between medical advancement and the law and concludes that there is no requirement for specific innovation laws. Conclusions The law not only supports innovation and development in medical treatment but encourages it as central to a functioning medical system. There is no need to introduce specific laws aimed at medical innovation; to do so represents an unnecessary legal innovation and serves to complicate matters. What is known about the topic? Over recent months, there has been a great deal of discussion surrounding the law in the context of medical innovation. This was driven by the attempts in the UK to introduce specific laws in the Medical Innovation Bill. The general subject matter – negligence and the expected standard of care in the provision of treatment – is very well understood, but not in cases where the treatment can be described as innovative. The general rhetoric in both the UK and Australia around the Medical Innovation Bill demonstrates a lack of understanding of the position of the law with regards to innovative treatment. What does this paper add? This paper adds clarity to the debate. It presents the law and explains the manner in which the law can operate around innovative treatment. The paper asserts that medical innovation is both supported and encouraged by existing legal principles. What are the implications for practitioners? The paper presents an argument that can guide the policy position in this area. It also provides clarity around the legal position and expected standard of care for those who are introducing innovative medical treatment.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Ilsner

The legal status of victims of violent criminality has been in the spotlight during recent decades. The institutionalization of psychosocial assistance in criminal proceedings represents the temporary peak of this development. In this study, the author focuses on the legal innovation, analyzes it fundamentally (especially regarding the recently formulated § 406g StPO), and submits specific reform proposals correspondingly. This research includes four systematically structured chapters, which impart the essential features of the legal institution, elucidate the legal framework, and finally appoint considerations regarding its transfer into the law of civil procedure.


Author(s):  
Gina Clayton ◽  
Georgina Firth ◽  
Caroline Sawyer ◽  
Rowena Moffatt ◽  
Helena Wray

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on series provides an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. This chapter discusses the law relating to individuals coming to the UK as visitors for short-term or finite purposes such as tourism, business visits, sporting and entertainment engagements, or for private medical treatment. There is a discussion of the withdrawal, reinstatement, and restriction of rights of appeal for those visiting family members in the UK, and the application of Article 8 ECHR to these situations. The revised visitor rules in Appendix V are described in detail. The chapter also discusses the special cases of marriage visitors, carers and transit visitors, and general conditions such as prohibited activities and the need for maintenance and accommodation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 26-31
Author(s):  
Md. Raisul Islam Sourav

This article contains a doctrinal analysis of the law and policy encouragement towards a low carbon energy transition in the Scotland. To do this, the present article is primarily focused on electricity sector of the Scotland and its commitment towards a low carbon transition in this sector in coming years. This article analyzes the existing significant laws and policies in Scotland that encourage towards a low carbon transition. However, it also evaluates international obligation upon the Scotland and the UK, as well, towards this transition. Subsequently, it assesses the UK’s legal framework in this regard. However, Scotland is firmly committed to achieve its targets towards a low carbon transition in the power sector although it needs more incentive and tight observation of the government to smoothen the process.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 411-420
Author(s):  
Tim Spencer-Lane

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarise the Law Commissions’ final report and draft Bill on the regulation of health and social care professionals. Design/methodology/approach – To summarise the key recommendations that are relevant to adult safeguarding. Findings – The final report concludes that new legislation is needed to govern the UK regulators of health and social care professionals. Originality/value – The paper sets out the recommended new legal framework.


2021 ◽  
pp. 370-384
Author(s):  
Gina Clayton ◽  
Georgina Firth ◽  
Caroline Sawyer ◽  
Rowena Moffatt

This chapter discusses the law relating to individuals coming to the UK as visitors for short-term or finite purposes such as tourism, business visits, sporting and entertainment engagements, or for private medical treatment. There is a discussion of the withdrawal, reinstatement, and restriction of rights of appeal for those visiting family members in the UK, and the application of Article 8 ECHR to these situations. The revised visitor rules in Appendix V are described in detail. The chapter also discusses the special cases of marriage visitors, carers and transit visitors, and general conditions such as prohibited activities and the need for maintenance and accommodation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 155-164
Author(s):  
Tracey Elliott ◽  
Jose Miola ◽  
Ash Samanta ◽  
Jo Samanta

In 2014, Lord Saatchi launched his ultimately unsuccessful Medical Innovation Bill in the UK. Its laudable aim was to free doctors from the shackles that prevented them from providing responsible innovative treatment. Lord Saatchi’s principal contention was that current law was the unsurmountable barrier that prevented clinicians from delivering innovative treatments to cancer patients when conventional options had failed. This was because doctors feared that they might be sued or tried and convicted of gross negligence manslaughter if they deviated from standard practice. Concerns about fear of the law and potential negative effects on medical practice are not new. Fear of litigation has been suggested as the reason for doctors practising “defensive medicine,” by opting for treatments regarded as “grievance-resistant,” rather than clinically indicated, for example, by ordering diagnostic tests or performing certain procedures, which are not strictly medically necessary. Whilst this claim is plausible and apparently accepted by the courts, there is limited empirical evidence in support of it so far as practitioners in the UK are concerned. In this paper, we report on our empirical research which provides a snapshot of medical opinion to begin to rectify this gap. We ran focus groups of different medical specialties, asking what these medical practitioners thought the barriers to medical innovation to be. We found that fear of the law was not the principal barrier to be lowered, and that the answer was far more multifaceted.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 476-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliana Close ◽  
Lindy Willmott ◽  
Benjamin P White

Much of the commentary in the wake of the Charlie Gard litigation was aimed at apparent shortcomings of the law. These include concerns about the perceived inability of the law to consider resourcing issues, the vagueness of the best interests test and the delays and costs of having disputes about potentially life-sustaining medical treatment resolved by the courts. These concerns are perennial ones that arise in response to difficult cases. Despite their persistence, we argue that many of these criticisms are unfounded. The first part of this paper sets out the basic legal framework that operates when parents seek potentially life-sustaining treatment that doctors believe is against a child’s best interests, and describes the criticisms of that framework. The second part of the paper suggests an alternative approach that would give decision-making power to parents, and remove doctors’ ability to unilaterally withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment that they regard is futile. This proposal is grounded in several values that we argue should guide these regulatory choices. We also contend that the best interests test is justifiable and since the courts show no sign of departing from it, the focus should be on how to better elucidate the underlying values driving decisions. We discuss the advantages of our proposed approach and how it would address some of the criticisms aimed at the law. Finally, we defend the current role that the judiciary plays, as an independent state-sanctioned process with a precedent-setting function.


This work attempts to state the law of England and Wales relating to the duties and liabilities of directors of companies, both civil and criminal. The most important elements of the legal framework affecting these matters are the company’s constitution and the Companies Act 2006, but particular aspects of a director’s conduct may engage other statutory provisions (eg Insolvency Act 1986 or criminal legislation). Common law rules and equitable principles provide the background that informs the interpretation of the legislation and the assessment by the court of a director’s conduct. Also relevant are ‘industry standards’ such as the UK Corporate Governance Code, which applies to listed companies, and guidance from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for companies subject to its regulation.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samet Caliskan ◽  
Pereowei Subai

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue that the disqualification of directors, coupled with other liabilities to which they may be subjected, particularly in insolvency, should be sufficient to deter wrongdoing, because of the impact they tend to have on their personal and professional lives. It, however, argues that the “deterrence” effect would be dependent on the existence of other factors such as the efficient application of the law, publicity and post-disqualification monitoring. Design/methodology/approach Using the UK as its primary case study, while also making reference to Nigeria and Turkey, this paper will show that while the existence of disqualification as a sanction exists in the first two countries, it is virtually absent from Turkey. And that while directors’ disqualification provisions are routinely applied in the UK, they are hardly invoked in Nigeria, except perhaps with respect to listed companies, due perhaps to a lack of awareness of its existence or potency. Findings This paper will conclude by making a case for a stronger application of the law, as it relates to directors’ disqualification in the UK, call for an elaboration of the legal framework in Nigeria as well as the need for a public awareness of its provisions and potential impact and contend that Turkey should put in place a legal framework for directors’ disqualification patterned also after the UK framework. Originality/value The uniqueness of this paper stems from its tri-country focus. In that respect, the UK, which is a more advanced economy, with a robust and dynamic company law regime, is used as the primary case study, whereas at the same time, developments in Nigeria, particularly with that country’s capital market, will be extracted and compared with the UK framework. Turkey, on the contrary, has been chosen as a case study mainly because it has no directors’ disqualification mechanism in its legal system. Comparing directors’ disqualification in one developing country, Nigeria, and a developed country, the UK and determining their upsides and downsides will be beneficial to Turkey in respect to establishing a deterrent effective disqualification mechanism on directors.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-68
Author(s):  
Mark Pope

The Justice and Security Act of 2013 provides for closed hearings in civil cases involving security sensitive information. The author argues that the UK Government successfully created and reinforced the authority of secretive sources to ensure the Bill was passed. Such authoritative sources promoted imaginaries of a future attack but also the need to respect legal principles that protected members of ‘our’ community. The dynamics between these imaginaries and principles led to the passing of the Bill in its final form – approving closed procedures in court, but removing inquests and issues of the ‘public interest’ from the Bill. Moreover, deliberation of the Bill was represented as negotiated and rational, thereby providing the final Act with legitimacy in elite fields. This research outlines how secrecy may not only be an end-goal of securitization moves, but reference to secret intelligence can also be integral to the justification of these moves.


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