Hospitals in Britain each seem to have their own ways of deciding who get access to the limited resources within the health care system, a new study in the Journal of Medical Ethics has found.
In surveying 22 people responsible for deciding who gets care at their local hospitals, the researchers found 14 different factors being used to decide which patients to treat, and which not. The top factors were cost effectiveness, clinical effectiveness, equality and total cost.
"No one reason was considered dominant," the report found.
Past Canadian Medical Association president Brian Day has identified access to health as one of the top emerging issues facing health care in this country, a point the study reiterates.
Several of those interviewed said societal or political directives and fear of litigation often distort the decision making process.
With financial pressures forcing health care providers to ration treatment, the researchers write that they launched the study to find out the sort of criteria is currently being used to make such decisions. After finding little consensus, they advocated better systems for developing such principles.
"Since we may not be able to construct principles that yield fair decisions ahead of time, we need a process that allows us to develop those reasons over time as we face real cases," the report says.
Ethicists in this country have argued for the same thing here.
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