Alex RKPerhaps prompted by the publication of the first report of the COVID-19 inquiry today (on the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom), I was emailed today about a case during the pandemic brought on the basis that the Defendants (the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and NHS England) had acted unlawfully “by failing to devise a policy setting out the priorities that should govern and/or guide decisions taken by doctors and other NHS clinicians in the event that demand for critical care treatment and services in a hospital exceeds supply and those doctors have to decide how resources that are available should be allocated as between patients.” The question made me look further into its availability, and identified that, to date, it has only been available on Westlaw (i.e. behind a paywall). It can now be found on Baiii here, and may potentially be of some interest. I cannot comment further on it, but I can properly note that the Court of Appeal refused permission to the claimants to appeal.
For those wanting to think more about triage, an issue which will no doubt be coming up later in the COVID-19 inquiry’s work, you may also be interested to see two papers to which I contributed during the pandemic, one reflecting on the work of the COVID-19 ethics working group at a large London hospital operating in the absence of national guidelines, and the other a deliberative democracy study looking at views of whether age should matter in triage.
