Challenging Health Care Rationing Decisions in England

In the modern NHS the rationing of health care resources has become inevitable. However, patients who have been refused treatment seem to be more and more eager to use litigation to access healthcare. The book analyses the legal paths, which can be followed by patients in order to challenge rationing decisions. These legal paths include English law, Human Rights and European law. After an initial analysis of the related English legislation and case law, the impact of EU law and the Directive 2011/24/EU are examined. In addition, the book tries to answer the question of the appropriateness of the judiciary to decide on such issues, analyses what its proper role could be and assesses how do the Courts perceive their role. Finally, the author proposes the creation of a special tribunal, which could handle such cases and whose structure could fix problems of objectivity, representation of all interests and waste of time and money. The book’s target groups: health lawyers, undergraduate and postgraduate students of Medical Law, health professionals, health managers; healthcare commissioners and generally any citizen interested in Health Law.