Guest post by José Miola, Professor of Medical Law, University of Leicester. So Chris Heaton-Harris MP’s Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill (AMTIB), the latest version of Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill (MIB), was voted through its second reading today by 32 votes to 19. This was despite informed, intelligent comments from Heidi Alexander MP and Sarah Wollaston MP, which…
A Dangerous Game
In its tacit support for the Saatchi Bill, the Department of Health is playing with patient safety Let me take this opportunity, on the question of the Government’s support, to reiterate that this is a private Member’s Bill. This is not a Government Bill. — George Freeman MP, Adjournment Debate on Medical Innovation Bill, 9th December 2014 To the casual observer,…
A Deadly Hydra
Lord Saatchi’s much-criticised Medical Innovation Bill has risen again, while a second Bill echoes Saatchi under a new name. Both Bills put patients “at grave risk” When Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill ran out of time in the last Parliament, it was a cause for great relief. A Bill that had been widely condemned by medical and patient protection groups, medical…
Call to action!
We need your help. We need you to make sure your MP knows the facts about Chris Heaton-Harris’s Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill, which will have its Second Reading in the House of Commons this coming Friday, 16th October. This is an important opportunity for MPs to discuss and thoroughly scrutinise the Bill. This new Bill is being touted as the…
Side by side
Chris Heaton-Harris’ Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill was touted as the successor to Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill, but is it? The hype suggests that the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill, a Private Member’s Bill being taken forward by Chris Heaton-Harris MP, is a direct replacement for Lord Saatchi’s much-derided Medical Innovation Bill (the Saatchi Bill). However, Saatchi’s original…
Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill 2015
Re-blogged with permission from Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill 2015 by Nigel Poole QC The Saatchi Bill has been “handed over” and is now in the Commons under a new name. Every criticism of the Saatchi Bill’s attempt to change the law of negligence still applies. Indeed because the new version fails to recognise that the common law has moved…
Chris Heaton-Harris MP Resurrects Lord Saatchi’s Zombie Quacks’ Charter
Re-blogged with permission from Chris Heaton-Harris MP Resurrects Lord Saatchi’s Zombie Quacks’ Charter by Andy Lewis Lord Saatchi has been trying for a number of years now to introduce a law that would drive a coach and horses through well established medical negligence law. The effect of the law would be to seriously erode a patient’s right to sue a doctor…
Two for the Price of One
What could be better than the Saatchi Bill? Two Saatchi Bills, if Lord Saatchi is to be believed. But we’ll all pay a high price for this Buy-One-Get-One-Free offer. On 18th June 2015, an extraordinary letter was published in the Independent, opposing Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill, which has been resurrected and returned to the House of Lords after being…
When the facts change….
Re-blogged with permission from When the facts change…. by Nigel Poole QC Lord Saatchi may be seeking to re-introduce his Medical Innovation Bill unchanged, but the common law he blames for preventing a cure for cancer, has moved on. In January 2015 the House of Lords sent the Medical Innovation Bill to the Commons. The Bill sought to provide doctors with…
Saatchi’s Bill could harm thousands
The Medical Innovation Bill, which would leave patients unprotected in the face of reckless medical experimentation, is before Parliament once more. The prospect should worry all of us [The Lib Dems] have killed the Medical Innovation Bill. It is dead. By killing the Bill they have killed the hopes of thousands of cancer patients. It is as simple as that.…
