The modern doctor's dilemma: rationing and ethics in healthcare

From one point of view, to talk about rationing and ethics is

to engage in subversion, for in the eyes of the UK

government there is no such thing as rationing in

healthcare. The Prime Minister has committed his

government to providing healthcare of a nationally attested

standard wherever and whenever it is needed, and ministers

have held unswervingly to the line that rationing is neither

necessary nor practised in the National Health Service1.

They insist that the NHS is still committed to providing

and is still providing-a comprehensive range of services

from the cradle to the grave. Rationing from this very

particular standpoint would mean the total removal of

certain services from the menu of availability through the

NHS, and this, ministers claim, is simply not happening.