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Biography |
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Alastair Kent is the Director of the Genetic Alliance UK (formerly Genetic Interest Group) whose aim is to improve the lives of people affected by genetic conditions by ensuring that high quality services and information are available to all who need them. Prior to joining Genetic Alliance UK Alastair worked for a number of voluntary organisations on issues concerning policy, service development and disabled people.
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Abstract |
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The right to proper health care? |
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As individuals we aspire to be well, as citizens we want publicly funded healthcare systems to be efficient and effective in their use of the resources allocated to them, and as patients we hope that the healthcare system that cares for us will be able to reflect current possibilities and good clinical practice in a timely way that addresses our unmet health needs.
Advancing scientific understanding of an increasing range of hitherto incurable diseases has created possibilities for intervening in the natural course of a growing number of conditions. Yet just because something can be done does not mean that health care services will do it, or that they will do it for all who need it. If we accept that publicly funded health care needs to provide services equitably and on the basis of need, but in an economic climate where budgets are constrained, expectations are rising, and possibilities are increasing it is clear that decisions have to be made about where to put resources. This requires a framework for decision making that is robust, transparent and open to challenge. Health Technology Assessment is an emerging discipline that seeks to provide this framework. While the rhetoric of HTA may be difficult to resist, the practice often leaves patients and families unhappy because the decision making framework omits consideration of aspects of their condition they deem to be important.
In this session I will examine the issues relating to decision making and the allocation of health care resources from a patient and family perspective, suggesting issues which can usefully be considered by health care decision makers in a variety of health economies and systems. |
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