The implications of outlawing age discrimination

Editor—All over the country health services are groaning under the weight of increasing workloads, pushed upwards in many instances by skyrocketing public expectations fuelled by the utterances of self seeking politicians. Levels of stress among health professionals are ratcheted up even further by demands for more accountability, publication of audit data, clinical governance, the ever expanding “blame culture,” and so on, all in an environment where resources are nowhere near adequate to deal with the workload that we already bear. Now we are being told by Rivlin that it would be a great idea to make age discrimination in health care illegal.¹ I am sure none of us would disagree with the principle behind his argument, but does he have any idea what a can of worms he is opening? The problems which he dismisses so breezily as “grey areas” could, in fact, result in a large number of legal actions against doctors who are simply trying to do an extremely difficult job in balancing the countless demands on our services. It's no good saying that if a doctor acts properly and in good faith any legal action against him or her is likely to fail: does Rivlin have any idea how stressful defending such an action could be even if the doctor were acquitted?

Can we please try first of all to get a grip on this extraordinary cloud-cuckoo-land vision of the NHS which people are being sold by politicians—that is, that they can have whatever they want, when they want it, but without the patient or the taxpayer putting up any more money? Until we do that we will never be in a position to make a sensible exploration of ideas like Rivlin's.