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Speech by the Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee

Dr Michael Wilks
Thursday 1 July

Download the slides as a powerpoint presentation using the right hand menu.

One of most exciting and challenging aspects of our ethics work is translating ethical principles into political action – the pursuit of practical ethics.

There has been talk here this week and within BMA House about narrowing the role of the Association down to that of a trade union.

This kind of talk mystifies me, partly because our influence as a political force derives as much (and on occasions more) from our involvement in professional issues as in defending our members’ contractual and financial interests. I often find it hard to see where the line is between representational and professional activities. Let me give you two current examples where it simply doesn’t exist:

On the Human Tissue Bill, we recruited widely across the professional and crafts committees for a coherent and persuasive reply to the Department of Health’s disproportionate response to Alder Hey and Bristol, a response that was threatening to do serious damage to medical research and teaching. We developed alliances with Royal Colleges and research bodies, and have rolled back what were impossibly restrictive consent procedures to something more in tune with real medical practice.

Slide 1

A second example is personal health information and data protection. It is obvious that the traditional doctor-patient relationship, based on principles of secrecy and trust, is being changed by the development of multiple points of access to health care, by the need to use healthcare data to plan services, and by the national programme for information technology within the NHS.

Slide 2

The Hippocratic Oath may still have resonance today, but Hippocrates didn’t have a laptop. As doctors, we should no longer be held liable for breaches of confidentiality within systems over which we have no control. What we are looking at, and will develop during the next session, using expertise across the BMA, is an approach towards personal health information based on data protection, so that there is a common set of principles – and a common set of penalties – for the protection of patient data, whether it be held and controlled by doctors, other health professionals, administrators or researchers.

We continue to work, with partial success to date, to close the gap between transplant recipients and donors. While we are delighted that the Human Tissue Bill is addressing some of the legal barriers to donation, we have yet to see a reassuringly significant increase in transplantation rates. Our Transplant Partnership, supported tirelessly by Veronica English, is a fine example of collaborative working.

Slide 3

And, of course, there is the daily contact with members and organisations. We gave you a copy of our “Ethicsbrief” in your conference packs. A look through it will give you an idea of the vast range of our work….

Slide 4

….and you will see that we act as a major resource to help BMA members with practical ethical problems. That’s the main reason for our existence and we do a very good job guiding doctors through their own ethical dilemmas.

Slide 5

We launched our new book – “Medical Ethics Today” – last December, to glowing reviews. Our latest book, at over 800 pages, stands in sharp contrast to the 1974 edition, which, in a slim volume, considered such weighty matters as whether a consultant or a GP should enter the room first when both visited a patient. (guess!)

Chairman, I move