Consultation outcome

Medical innovation: proposals to make clinical negligence law clearer

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government
This consultation has concluded

Download the full outcome

Detail of outcome

The report sets out a summary of responses to the consultation on the Medical Innovation Bill and the next steps. The consultation was based on an earlier version of the Bill – the Bill as introduced on 5 June 2014 was altered slightly by Lord Saatchi in response to early feedback. The government believes that further changes are required in order to make the Bill safe for patients and doctors, and intends to work with Lord Saatchi to amend the Bill accordingly as it progresses through Parliament.


Original consultation

Summary

Asks for views on whether clarifying the law will encourage doctors to develop innovative treatments in a responsible way.

This consultation ran from
to

Consultation description

We want to know whether the Medical Innovation Bill should be made law. The main aim is to help us understand: would the bill help encourage responsible medical innovation, and help prevent irresponsible innovation?

We welcome comments from everyone with an interest – particularly doctors, patients and legal professionals.

If the bill becomes law, doctors will be able to innovate where there is no body of opinion to support the innovation or where it’s not clear whether this exists.

The proposed safeguards suggest doctors should have sound reasons for their innovation and the bill would introduce a statutory best practice checklist as a safeguard against irresponsible innovation.

Documents

Published 27 February 2014
Last updated 30 July 2014 + show all updates
  1. Summary of responses and next steps added.

  2. First published.