Saatchi's Medical Innovation Bill may impact on patient safety

Personal injury lawyers have warned Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill could drive vulnerable patients into the hands of “maverick” doctors.

Lord Saatchi’s bill would give legal protection to doctors seeking to try alternative procedures or treatments for cancer. It goes to committee stage in the House of Lords next week.

However, John Spencer, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Apil) said that, contrary to popular perception, the Bill would not just apply to “dying people who are willing to give anything a chance". 

“In fact, the Bill will affect all patients who, in their vulnerability, may be tempted to take risks at the hands of maverick doctors who are over-ambitious in their drive to make names for themselves. Lord Saatchi’s amendments to the Bill do not address concerns about patient safety raised by doctors, patient groups, and medical research organisations. 

“Under the Bill, a doctor needs to only ‘obtain the views’ of an ‘appropriately qualified doctor’ before undertaking an innovative treatment.

"Crucially, he would not have to act on those views, and we still don’t know what an ‘appropriately qualified doctor’ is.”

Spencer said he had heard of no cases of a doctor being sued for using an innovative treatment, and that if some doctors were holding back from certain treatments due to a misunderstanding of the law then that could be could by “an effort to educate, not legislate”.