Department of Health, Review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act: Proposals for revised legislation (including establishment of the Regulatory Authority for Tissue and Embryos) (Dec 2006), Cm 6989
There has been a paradigm shift in terms of thinking about errors. In the aftermath of disasters, the lens of responsibility is being refocused away from people and towards (work) places. Institutions not individuals, processes rather than persons are becoming the focus of investigation. The search for scapegoats is beginning to look crass and ineffective. This is reflected in the formal responses to these events, such as public inquiries, which now routinely focus on system responsibility. Whilst systems analysis has obvious merits it also raises important and unresolved questions. In particular, what are the risks of this shift towards systems thinking? What are the implications for individual professional responsibility? Will the commitment to systems responsibility be meaningful in practice? First, however, we must sketch the contention and connotation of different descriptions of error episodes and appreciate the true toll of the error problem in medicine.
this is more than a study in the jurisprudence of regulation and of technology. The book also contains important and instructive essays in medical law (particularly), seeking, as it does, to explicate many of the background debates (for example on consent (pp 72–86) and information rights (pp 87–98), on the (legitimate and illegitimate) purposive interpretation of key texts such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and embryonic stem cell research (pp 47–56, 168–184), property in human tissue (pp 61–68) and genetic databases and forensic collections (pp 215–235), each of which is often treated in a more or less superficial way in some of the standard texts and commentaries, where judicial and legislative statements are offered without background context beyond some preferred ethical standpoint. And there are considerations of bioethics generally (pp 32–47, 100–118), patenting and human life forms (187–195), gambling (197–201), nanotechnology (pp 118–125).
Post-mortem examinations have been suspended at Wales' biggest hospital after inspectors found major problems. The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) highlighted problems in procedures, facilities and equipment at University Hospital of Wales (UHW) in Cardiff. The HTA said it did not take such action lightly, and Conservatives called it an "extreme step".