Medical Innovation Bill Averted

Published: 1 Mar 2015

AvMA welcomes reports that the Medical Innovation Bill will not proceed and that instead there will be an independent review to report on what the real barriers to medical innovation might be and how it can be supported. That is something AvMA had argued was a better approach all along. The majority of leading patients’ and doctors’ organisations agree that the Bill, whilst well intended, was unnecessary and harmful to patient safety. No patient will miss out as a result of the Bill being lost and the independent review offers real opportunities for improvements. Ideally the Bill should have been rejected through the parliamentary process but in effect it has run out of time. It would have been wrong to make a special case for this Bill to leapfrog all other private members’ Bills.