I have been working with Lord Maurice Saatchi for the past couple of years in support of a Bill to give doctors the tools they need to fight cancer and other terminal conditions. The Medical Innovation Bill has now successfully passed through the House of Lords and has come to the House of Commons where I have officially taken it up.
The Bill is designed to make it easier for doctors to innovate in their treatment of terminally ill patients, so long as they have the fully-informed consent of their patient, a second medical opinion, and the oversight of a multi-disciplinary panel.
Currently, doctors who depart from ‘standard practice’ can be exposed to the threat of legal action. The problem is that many of the ‘standard’ routes of treatment have been pursued for decades and just do not work; unless some latitude and encouragement is given to doctors to consider reasonable fresh options in their treatments then little progress is likely to be made towards eventually finding a cure. My Bill will change that, and give doctors more scope if they wish, and under strict safeguards.
This Bill reaching the Commons is an achievement in itself, and one of the biggest challenges will now be getting it to a vote before Parliament is dissolved at the end of March. Time is not on our side!
There are two months until the General Election is called and I will be working extremely hard in Parliament during those two months to try to ensure that this Bill has sufficient support to pass through the Commons into Law.
Read more about the Bill here.