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Health Care Analysis

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01.09.2006 | Original Article

Law, Patient’s Rights and NHS Resource Allocation: Is Eurostar the Answer?

verfasst von: Jean V. McHale

Erschienen in: Health Care Analysis | Ausgabe 3/2006

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Abstract

Historically attempts to use the courts as a means of challenging decisions to refuse NHS resources have met with little success. However two recent developments, that of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the development of European Union law through the application of Article 49 of the EC Treaty have provided the prospect for a challenge to this position. This article examines the impact of a recent case that of Watts v Bedford PCT in which a woman sought to by-pass NHS waiting lists by seeking treatment in France and then claimed reimbursement of the cost of the operation and the possible impact of this case in the context of patients’s rights and resource allocation.

Watts v Bedford Primary Care Trust (2003). EWHC 2228.

Discussed below under section EU Law and Resource Allocation.

Interestingly in evidence given during the litigation it was suggested that the equivalent operation if undertaken on the NHS would cost some £4000 and if undertaken privately in England would have cost some £6000.

Through the Clinical Trials Directive, Directive 2001/20/EC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member states relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use OJ 2001 L 121/34.

Directive 2002/98/EC setting standards of quality and safety for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of human blood and blood components OJ 2002 l 33/30.

See generally Hervey and McHale (2005) ``Law, Health and the European Union'' 25(2) Legal Studies 228.

Brazier (1993) “Rights and Health Care” in R. Blackburn Rights of Citizenship Mansell: C. Newdick “The Organisation of Health Care” in A. Grubb (ed) Principles of Medical Law Oxford: OUP (2004). McHale “Enforcing Health Care Rights in English Courts” in Burchill, Harris, Owers (eds) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Their Implementation in English Law University of Nottingham, Human Rights Centre in association with Justice (1999).

Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374.

Per Lord Woolf in R v North and East Devon HA ex parte Coughlan [1999] Lloyds Rep Med 306.

R v Lord Sackville ex parte A [1999] 4 All ER 860.

R v St Mary’s Hospital NHS Trust ex parte Harriot [1988] 1 FLR 512.

(1980) (1979) 123 Sol J 436.

(1987) but not reported until (1992) 3 BMLR 32.

See for example, R v Central Birmingham HA ex parte Collier (1988) LEXIS 6 January.

[1995] 2 All ER 129.

[1977] 8 Med LR 327.

[2000] 1 WLR 977.

[2000] 2 WLR 622.

[1996] QB 517 at p554.

[1992] 4 All ER 614.

[1999] Lloyd’s Rep Med 367.

Brazier and Miola (2000) “Bye Bye Bolam” Medical Law Review 85.

Though c/f Bolitho v Hackney Health Authority [1997] 3 WLR 1151.

J. V. McHale and A. Gallagher (2004) Nursing and Human Rights Elsevier.

Section 6.

Section 4.

Section 3.

(1998) 27 EHRR 212.

(1998) 26 EHRR 164.

(2000) 29 EHRR 245.

Case 23634/94 (1994) unreported.

[1999] Lloyd Rep Med 399.

[2003] 1 AC 1163.

Article 137(4).

See further T. K. Hervey and J. V. McHale (2004) Health Law and the European Union Cambridge: OUP chapter 4; P. Cabral (2004) “The Internal Market and the Right to Cross- Border Medical Care” 29(5) European Law Review 673.

E. Mossialos and W. Palm (2003) “The European Court of Justice and the Free Movement of Patients in the EU” 56 International Social Security Review 3.

Article 22(2) as amended.

Luisi and Carbone.

Case C-158/96 Kohll [1998] ECR-I-1935.

Case C-368/86 Vanbraekel.

Case C-157/99 Judgement of 21 July 2001, Smits and Peerbooms.

Case C-385/99 Muller-Faure and van Riet [2003] ECR I–6447.

Case C-56/01 Inizan v Caisse primarie d’assurance maladie des Hauts de seine [2003] ECR I-.

Muller Faure and Van Riet Case C 385/99 [2003] ECR I-4509.

Article 50 EC.

Note 1 supra at para 130.

Kohll v Union des caisses de maladie (Case C-158/96) [1998] ECR I-1931.

Secretary of State for Health v R (on the application of Watts) [2004] 2 CMLR 55.

The Queen on the application of Yvonne Watts Case C-372-04.

Secretary of State for Health v R on the application of Yvonne Watts, Case No C1/2003/239; [2004] EWCA Civ 166.

Para 98.

As to the impact of the ECJ judgements on member states see generally Hervey and McHale op cit at pages 138–144.

Op cit at para 112.

Newdick (2005) op cit at page 244.

Ibid.

Ibid at page 245.

See further J. McHale in “The EU and Reproductive Services: Enhancing Choices or Entrenching Attitudes” in Millns, S, and Mateo-Diaz, M, The furture of gender equality in the European Union Palsgrave (forthcoming 2006).

See generally P. Koutrakos “Healthcare as an economic service under EC law” in M. Dougan and E. Spaventa (eds) (2005) Social Welfare and EU law Hart Publishing; Oxford.

J. McHale and M. Bell (2002) “Traveller’s checks” Health Service Journal 39.

See further Hervey and McHale (2004) op cit above pages 397–398.

See further T. Hervey (2003) “The right to health in EU law” in T. K. Hervey and J. Kenner (eds.) Economic and Social Rights Under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights Hart Publishing: Oxford.

“Work of the High Level Group on health services and medical care” in 2005, HLG/2005/16.

Titel: Law, Patient’s Rights and NHS Resource Allocation: Is Eurostar the Answer?
verfasst von: Jean V. McHale
Publikationsdatum: 01.09.2006
Verlag: Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers
Erschienen in: Health Care Analysis / Ausgabe 3/2006
Print ISSN: 1065-3058
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-3394
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-006-0022-8

Springer Medizin

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