07 June 2007
In brief
NHS staff will not be allowed to consider a patient’s age when deciding whether or not to carry out expensive operations and administer drugs under proposed new age discrimination laws. If implemented, the new legislation could open wide areas of extra treatment for the elderly, potentially costing the NHS millions. For example, doctors could be compelled to refer patients in their 80s and 90s for surgery and drug trials unless there was a sound medical case for denying them. Upper age limits on treatment such as IVF would also be scrapped.
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